Jack Palance was my distant uncle - that's the family gossip. Growing up, my family knew everything about his face getting burned and scarred in the military and how that mutilation led him to become such a famous 'heavy' in films. I prayed for good scars of my own. Not just acne scars.

I don't do much more than organise other people's ideas and insights and thoughts, and sort of harvest them, and inventory them and present them.

I was born in 1962, and it seems that throughout my entire life the world has demanded peace but maintained conflict.

If you flee from the things you fear, there's no resolution.

I did stand-up comedy for 18 years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four years were spent in wild success. I was seeking comic originality, and fame fell on me as a byproduct. The course was more plodding than heroic.

I needed to be more self-determining, and the most self-determining thing you can do in comedy is stand-up.

My eyes are different sizes, my nose is too broad at the bridge and squishes up when I laugh, and my lips are sorta funny when I smile.

For storytelling purposes, there has to be conflict, but that doesn't mean the people have to be mean. I've never liked mean-spirited comedy.