James Acaster

“I remember being four or five, not understanding how to be funny, so just going around the house and my mum and dad's friends, confusing adults by saying weird things.”

“I definitely want to be as good and original as I can.”

“I'm not a big depressive, but I have my moments.”

“I absolutely loathe sleeping in a tent, regardless of the weather.”

“Corduroy hits the sweet spot between jeans and slacks. They're a trouser middleman.”

“People like abstract art because it makes them feel clever.”

“I'm great under pressure.”

“I'd say I get heckled quite a lot because I look quite like an easy target. If you're an alpha-male and you think you've got something to prove to your girlfriend, I think I'm the perfect person to prove your worth.”

“One of the things I figured out was that I was having good gigs when I wore jumpers. It was because I looked more like an outsider, so they expected me to talk about weird stuff rather than normal stuff.”

“Certain celebs manage to worm their way out of the spotlight, and I won't stand for that.”

“I know what I want to talk about, but I don't really know what's funny about a joke until I perform it in front of an audience.”

“There's not many comedy characters that make me laugh as much as The Rock does; it's nice to have a big muscly guy being funny and stupid.”

“Every year in Edinburgh, I end up waiting behind the curtain about to go on stage, and I have a moment of thinking, 'No one's told me what to do with this show. I've done exactly what I wanted. This is the biggest arts festival in the world, and all these people have shown up. Aren't I lucky?' It really is amazing.”

“I used to work with autistic children, and they said a lot of funny things to me.”

“Ross Noble at the Leicester De Montfort Hall on his Randomist tour - it's the only time I've hurt from laughing at a standup comedian.”

“If you just focus on getting better, and not being the best, you have such a good time.”

“I like touring, and I like stopping off at service stations and driving along motorways.”

“First I stopped believing in hell, then the afterlife. Sometimes that connection is still there, and I'll feel an impulse to pray if I'm stressed or upset.”

“The comic I can now never enjoy again is Bill Cosby. He was truly one of the first comedians I got into.”

“I got left for Mr. Bean. I found out a year after we split up. I opened the newspaper and there was a full-page story. No one else in the history of time has ever been left for Mr. Bean.”