Jo Brand

When I got married, the Sun ran the headline: 'Here comes the bride, all fat and wide.' Luckily, it was a few days after the wedding - but it was still hideous to read at a great romantic moment.

There are problems with nursing - such as the issue of nurses all having to do degrees these days. But that doesn't mean to say the entire infrastructure of nursing is falling about and that it is populated by unfeeling psychopaths, which is, frankly, the implication sometimes.

I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways.

They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but for most people, by the time it's ready to eat, they just don't fancy it any more.

With two small children, I haven't had a wash since 2001 so the chance to go shopping is way down the list. It is something I do intend to get.

I used to do bell ringing in Benenden church. It was really good fun, actually. My best friend's dad was the local vicar, and so it was expected as her best friend that I would go to church every Sunday with her.

I think self-esteem is fluid. It's not a fixed state, and so some days are better than others.

I just don't like travelling very much.

It is unrealistic to expect an entire profession to be completely good. There are bound to be some individuals who are stressed, who are unkind, who are a bit rubbish at their job, who are in the wrong career.

I must be an anorexic because an anorexic looks in the mirror and sees a fat person.

There are so many cliches associated with mental health - such as the 'fine line between lunacy and genius' - which are, on the whole, a load of rubbish.

I don't hold any candle for drama versus comedy.

My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and they met as young socialists. That probably tells you everything you need to know about my attitude to money - I've never really been bothered about it.

It's got too much hard work slapping them and telling them to shut up.

I've never trained as an actor. I've always thought I'm not a good actor. I've been told I'm not a good actor by a lot of people.

I've never, ever had people being aggressive to me in public or abusing me, and actually quite a lot of men do say to me, 'You're quite good' - though they can't bear to go, 'You're great.'

Most of us manage the fateful things that happen in our lives the best we can, certainly not to a Stalin-like 20-year plan.

As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan.

My dad's a very sensitive man, but as the archetypal rebellious teenager, I didn't realise that.

I've always been criticised for how filthy my material is. Victoria Wood said to me once, 'I wish I was a bit ruder, like you,' and I said, 'Well, I wish I was a bit cleaner, like you.'

I think some people ramp a side of themselves up for performance purposes.

I'm sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people.

Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.

I wouldn't say I was organised at all. I just have to prioritise. Is it more important for them to be organised, or to have their dinner, do you know what I mean?

Even nice things don't make you happy when you're tired.

The way to a man's heart is through his hanky pocket with a breadknife.

I still get blokes who say, 'Oh you hate men, don't you?' And I say, 'No, I just hate you.' I really love doing that, just to see the look on their faces.

I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people's lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.

I thought I was funny as a kid.

I like to shock people.

If I am totally honest, I would have to say that 'Allo 'Allo!' was not my cup of tea, even though lots of people loved it. For that reason, I find comedy fascinating. There is a huge difference between what people find funny.

One of the guys that used to run it - for some reason I've no idea why he used to call me the Sea Monster and I was just looking around for a name and thought that'll do. That lasted for a couple of years probably.

I used to get nervous about three weeks before a gig... now I've managed to condense it down to a manageable ten minutes.

Anything is good if its made of chocolate.

I've never been a fan of euphemism.

Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading an article about themselves in the press knows that, on the whole, there is a huge amount of inaccuracy, value judgment and the use of a crowbar to insert editorial bias that reflects the current political leaning of that particular paper.

If you're a fat person - and especially if you're a woman - at all stages of your life you'll get abuse for it, so you have to work out a way of dealing with it. The best way is to be humorous about it - that defuses any tension.

I love everything about books. I love the content, the way they look and even the lovely way they smell. I think a book collection says something about you as a person, and certainly my books are something I'd want to pass on for future generations.

Wild men are so enormously attractive.

There are two types of people in this world: one who opens a packet of biscuits, has one and puts the rest back in the cupboard, and one who eats the whole packet in one go.

One thing lots of Christians do have in common is that they can't help coming across as smug. This winds lots of people up, particularly because famous Christians pronounce on the life of the poor from their very lovely affluent homes filled with their very lovely families and attractive pets.

The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.

I think my comedy, the put-downs I do to hecklers, are the accumulated bitterness of years of people feeling that it's perfectly acceptable to make a comment on your appearance when they don't even know you.

I think the key attributes for a good speaker are someone that's articulate and someone that puts a fair amount of humour into what they do.

Being Christian towards poor people means trying to improve their lives and give them back some self-respect.

Some men are deeply likable but have attitudes I don't like. Does that mean I should completely dismiss them? It's like saying: if someone votes Tory can you like them? And, yes, I can. I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways. We have a tendency to oversimplify things.

Christians have always been fodder for comedians who have tended to portray them as anoraks - slightly clammy, beatifically smiley dullards with barely a personality between them.

So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully - which I didn't at the beginning.

Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.

My mum always felt that women deserved as much as men, and should have as much power, so I suppose I opted to go into a very male-dominated arena to try and prove that.

I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn't turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did.

People can forgive each other.

People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare.

I made a supreme effort not to do that thing that parents do, which is to bore people without children to death by going on and on about how funny their children are, so there's none of that hopefully.

I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning - though I never really intended it to be - was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly.

Each generation has a backlash against the generation before.

I have two brothers and we basically spent our lives playing in the woods, falling in ponds, getting chased by wasps and riding donkeys that we shouldn't have been riding.

Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone.

You don't really see ugly people that are old, or a bit grotty and smelly, in the media. If a Martian came down, they would think we were all tall, thin, attractive and wealthy.

The thing I thought about doing it was it's Comic Relief and you've got to be funny. So although I did try to sing properly it obviously has hilarious results when you can't sing.

My preference is swimming in the sea. I find the sea is more liberating, wild and good fun rather than plodding up and down a pool.

I don't know really, it doesn't feel like it has changed to me but I think to have to move with the times. Try out different areas and not get stuck in 1978.

A good culture in a hospital can absorb and manage a few bad nurses, but once the culture becomes bad in itself, bad nursing practice is much harder to hide.

I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.

A lot of people do that kind of nostalgia stuff believing that they were very happy in their teenage years, but that's probably just an illusion.

I was really, because I thought it was extremely excruciating when I watched a tape of it, that my husband taped for me and I never watched it again after that.

I read that book 'Fat is a Feminist Issue', got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.

I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.

I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach.

People are so different in reality from the picture created of them on TV. So it's all a creation; everything is made up.

Suffice to say, many women find their first appearance on a comedy panel show to be their last. Second chances seem to be given less often to the female of the species.

I never ever take into consideration the consequences of my actions until it's too late.

School was great. There were no boys there, which didn't really bother me at the time because I had two brothers, so I was quite pleased not to spend any more time with boys.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

I often tell audiences at the start of my shows that I'm not gay because I've got petitions from lesbian groups saying 'Can you tell people you're heterosexual because you're giving us a bad name.'

I'd love to live in Kent but it's all a question of work.

Does anyone really go into nursing intending to be apathetic, cold and removed from suffering? I find that very difficult to believe.

I'm just trying to spread the word and upturn the myth that actually you should be resting after cancer treatment. You shouldn't; you should be getting out and doing any kind of exercise you can. You don't have to run a marathon, but you just have to up your activity levels.

I'm a terrible sort of non-fussy eater, really. I don't like posh food very much, and the more ingredients something's got in it, the less I tend to like it.

I'm a real Kentish maid, you know.

I think it's difficult, if you're a quite private person like I am, to write about your life very intimately.

I like reading, I like boring things, and yet I think people for ages had this image of me that I was on the tube with a chainsaw looking for any likely candidate.

Privatisation splits hospital services into increasingly small packages.

What could be funnier than a fat person trying to run a marathon?

Over the years I attempted to make my style a bit more relaxed 'cause the initial style you couldn't watch for more than ten minutes without wanting to kill me.

You look across the board at comedy quiz shows, and they are mainly hosted by men.

There are comics who treat women fairly appallingly. But I can be great friends with them because I don't tend to do that ticking of boxes: it can make life too simplistic.

I don't like doing stand-up, because I don't like standing up.

Whatever situation you are in, that is what is normal for you.

What they did was to make a pilot and it may well go to series at the next festival but I don't have any news on that. It's already been on Paramount actually, but as it's on Paramount it'll probably be on several more times... hopefully.

Birthdays are natures way of telling you to eat more cake.

There are lots of people who believe that caricature of me the tabloids created, so they think they don't like me.

Everything becomes magnified at night. Sounds travel in a different way, it's dark, and everything seems far more spooky.

I can honestly say I've never sold any arms to a repressive foreign regime while reassuring everyone at home that the weapons will be used for nice things.

There's a general sense that women are more relaxed and less defensive in comedy than they used to be. I think it's easier than it was but underlying it all there is still a pretty sexist view of women on stage, which to me hasn't changed that much.

How do you conduct an intimate relationship where no one ever loses it? Where no one ever lashes out, where no one ever smacks anyone in the mouth?

I never think, 'Where am I going to be in a year's time?' That seems to be a sure way of missing the fact that you might be quite happy now.

There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I'm doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much.

I'm not a flag waver for obesity. It's not healthy, and you have a crap life because there is such a downer on it.

Let's face it: I am not a professional runner.