Jack Dee

“One of my friends went on a murder weekend... now he is doing life for it.”

“One Saturday in 1984, I walked into my first AA meeting. I went regularly for six years and only stopped when I came to realize my underlying problem was not genuine alcoholism, but depression.”

“I'm not really part of any group or clique or gang because that's always been my nature.”

“I tried to be as thorough as I can, but there is a responsibility that we all have, especially with something like AA which is dependant on anonymity. Once you start banging on about it the whole time, you are potentially damaging the whole concept of it.”

“I love mixing with comedians when I'm working with them, but when I'm not I don't feel the need to hang around with them.”

“Mmmm... the comedy that matters is the comedy you pull out of thin air. It's a bit like when something funny has happened and you try to explain it to someone else and end up saying, 'You had to be there.'”

“Possibly I am difficult to live with, but I don't bring my work home much. I'm either busy or not busy. And I don't work from home. I have an office here which has a white wall. No view. I did try working in a room with a view but it was too interesting. Too distracting.”

“It's something that has informed quite a lot of my comedy - that idea of someone who is always trying to get in there with the right crowd, always trying to be a certain type of person and never managing it.”

“If I've inadvertently become some sort of role model for failed comedians, then it's really backfired very badly on me.”

“I really hated fighting people and hurting them, but felt unable to stop.”

“And people are intrigued if I really am as grumpy in real life. People feel a bit let down if I'm laughing or smiling.”

“I was so keen to become a comedian that actually doing the comedy itself almost came second.”

“In many ways, not fitting in has been a comedic asset and a comedic resource.”

“The jokes are great but what really matters for a comedian is his performance, his whole attitude, and the laughs that he gets between the jokes rather than on top of the jokes.”

“I was on various anti-depressants, but not for long - I didn't function very well on them. I felt sort of flattened out.”

“I took religion much too seriously, however, and its overall effect was depressing. I would have really liked to discard it, but somehow I couldn't.”

“I spent the first 25 years of my life not knowing what I wanted to do.”

“I really like rustic mediterranean cooking. And I like trying out curry takeaways.”

“Maybe I fear things going wrong so much that I pre-empt them by not getting excited about them when they appear to be. going well.”

“I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere.”