Barry Humphries

Sex is the most beautiful thing that can take place between a happily married man and his secretary.

Now the point of comedy is not just looking funny, it's use of language. We have at our disposal a great language... and the imaginative, creative use of that language can be at the service of humour.

I think of myself as an actor. The duty of an actor is to be able to impersonate anything - a child, an old man, a tree, a chair, a woman.

I feel like I've cheated. I never knew what to do. I was never a good enough painter to earn a living, and so I drifted into the theatre, and I've had a successful life. I feel guilty that I've never done a day's work in my life!

I'm approaching 70. Unfortunately, from the wrong direction.

I say things other people wish they could say. I don't pick on people - I empower them.

I have beautiful, beautiful clothes, designed by my bachelor boy son, Kenny. Kenny has a big following as it is, and even Lady Gaga has asked Kenny to design dresses for her. But Kenny isn't very keen on, well, shall we say, extreme women. He likes someone that women all over the world can identify with.

Most of my contemporaries at school entered the World of Business, the logical destiny of bores.

Am I old-fashioned? I think I might be. I am a lucky woman, because I was born with a priceless gift... the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.

My parents were very pleased that I was in the army. The fact that I hated it somehow pleased them even more.

I've decided the secret of parenting is benevolent neglect.

What is extraordinary about the character of Edna - and I speak as though I am completely outside this character and I am talking to you - I'm, as it were, in the wings, and she's on stage, and every now and then she says something extremely funny, and I stand there and think: 'I wish I'd thought of that.'

In Edna, I created a satiric portrait of my hometown of Melbourne, a large provincial English city paradoxically in far Southeast Asia. She's a theatrical figure, related to vaudeville in some respects. She inhabits a world in which there are comparatively few female exponents of comedy.

If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up.

New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.

There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously.

People only watch my shows for me, and those shows have remained evergreen long after the guests are forgotten.

I denied this for many, many years and years... but you cannot help but not see a little of my mother in the character of Edna.

I never thought that I would become a staple in the Australian cultural diet. The equivalent of bread or milk, or a fine old Tasmanian Mauve Vein. I think it's because I talk about things that people dare not mention. I don't mean raunchy things or unsavoury things. I call a spade a spade - I discuss things in a realistic manner.

I guess you could say I'm an addict - an adrenalin addict - I get great excitement and stimulation from doing stuff in public, even though I'm nervous and I have very bad stage fright.

I have charity work that I do. I started my own charity, the Friends of the Prostate, and I'm also working on awareness of the deviated septum. I do this because not many people are interested in it. There's also Save the Funnel-web - they're dying out.

Fish are friends not food.

I've played Beckett. I put on in the 1950s the first Australian production of 'Waiting for Godot.' I played Estragon. The most interesting conversation I've had about Beckett was with a Dublin taxi driver.

There's to be a film about my life. I can give this as an exclusive now. Meryl Streep was offered the part but, no, I wanted Kate Winslet. Kylie Minogue is playing me in middle age. In old age, I'm not sure who's going to play me. I haven't got there yet. Perhaps Cate Blanchett. Or Jacki Weaver.

I suffer greatly from nerves. I have stage-fright badly, and it gets worse, but the stage is still my life.

There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken serously.

Political correctness means nothing to me. Nothing. It's the new Puritanism, darling. Preventing us from expressing ourselves.

To live in Australia permanently is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one's mother.

My husband passed away a long time ago, and of course a lot of people have courted me. I've been taken to dinner and also to things like Larry Hagman, in particular years ago. And more recently, of course, little Hugh Jackman - and he's too young for me though, frankly.

Oddly enough, Dame Edna is not interested in show business. Her friends in Los Angeles are mostly in the world of petroleum. She used to have some acting friends. Sadly, Joan Rivers has passed on. Larry Hagman was a close friend. A number of others.