Anh Do

“I used to have to borrow textbooks from my mate in another class. When he was away I'd have no textbooks and the teacher would say, 'Anh, you have to go to detention.' I didn't want to tell her my mum didn't have the money.”

“That's what sort of fascinates me - what's funny as well as what's sad.”

“A good painting is a lot like a good joke: you need to know when to stop, too many 'punchlines and you will have gone too far.”

“Many people told me not to call the book '... Refugee' because Aussies won't buy it. I told them I have faith in Aussies, and it makes me a proud Aussie to see that the title hasn't hurt the book.”

“Painting is a lonely, mostly solitary act.”

“I love being on stage and connecting with 2000 people, but you don't really see me that often at the Logies and all that red carpet stuff. I'd rather just have dinner with my wife and kids.”

“One of my uncles was actually a sapper who cleared land mines for Anzacs, Australian soldiers, and we had to flee Vietnam. There were 40 of us on a 9-meter fishing boat. We were at sea for five days, a very perilous journey. We were attacked by pirates twice.”

“I love the company of my family and I like being on stage performing because I'm interested in people.”

“This mum comes up, she's got a five-year-old kid and she says, 'Can he have your autograph, you are his favourite person in the whole world.' I thought, 'How cool is that? I've got five-year-old fans,' and as I'm signing this autograph, the mum goes, 'Yeah, yeah, you're by far the best Wiggle.'”

“I've been to Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney and it's all barbed wire, it's like a big jail.”

“On the world stage, Australians are very good short filmmakers.”

“I was a Vietnamese kid with a mullet hair cut. I had all Westie mates, and, geez, a Vietnamese guy with a mullet doesn't work; no wonder I couldn't get a girlfriend for so many years.”

“When I was a kid in year one and year two, I had troubles with reading and writing, and my mum took me to St. Vinnies and we bought this big box of second-hand books, and she worked with me to turn that weakness around, you know.”

“My mum raised three kids on her own on sweatshop wages of about six bucks an hour so there was a lot of late rent and landlords knocking on the door.”

“My family had to leave Vietnam because my uncles fought alongside the Aussies.”

“I cranked out a book. I didn't expect it to do much, but it's sold 80,000 copies.”

“I love entertaining and I love storytelling.”

“When I found out I'd won Book of the Year, the first person I called was my mum, who was so happy she cried on the phone. I did a bit too to be honest.”

“I've always been a serious person.”

“A lot of being a comedian is about observing people.”