Julia Davis

“I think most people, including me, like to read gossipy things about others: revealing things that I love to read but I don't really want known about me.”

“I sometimes write in a cafe down the road from my house now because I feel guilty trying to work if I can hear them playing. I invariably end up sat in a corner, depressed, retreating into my own world.”

“I'd love to find a lifelong female film editor as Scorsese has with Thelma Schoonmaker. I think women are probably, without generalising, sensitive to subtle things as an editor.”

“I was brought up in Guildford, and I think I used to absorb all the suburban things - seeing coffee mornings, women talking... that stuff, really. I was watching Alan Ayckbourn on some documentary, and he was talking about how he was around a lot of women as a child, listening to all that stuff.”

“I think I am generally prone to exaggerating characters, taking them to a ridiculous extent. But you do also meet those people in real life who are just really awful.”

“I can't just lie in bed and be self-obsessed if there are two children running about who could easily fall down the stairs.”

“I'm sure all parents think their kids are funny, and I'm sure a lot of kids are, whether their parents are comics or not.”

“The main thing is to believe writers know what their voices are, and if they are left alone, they will come through with something. There are a load of brilliant U.S. comedies: at the moment, I'm loving 'Girls.' People say the U.S. is more conservative; I think, actually, it is a bit looser here, but trends change.”

“My desktop is really chaotic, and I'm always trying to work out where I am going to put all these ideas.”

“I would never say, 'Ooh, let's do something really dark.'”

“I love watching programmes about food. I always think, 'When I'm old, I'll take up baking.' There's something calming about watching the recipe and thinking, 'I'm going to make that' - and it's never going to happen.”

“I just find it funny and terrible: someone being very rude and overbearing over somebody who doesn't know how to deal with it. Maybe it's because I've experienced that sort of thing and I don't know how to say, 'You can't do that. You can't say that to me.'”

“That is one thing I really hate about working in TV - you have to shape episodes to exact time-lengths, do like 22 minutes, and it is just so against what you are making.”

“To me, if something makes you laugh, that's heart-warming. It doesn't necessarily have to be friendly; it might just be the weirdest thing ever. Laughing makes me feel better.”

“I watch a lot of U.S. comedy, shows such as 'Eastbound & Down' and 'Veep.' I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her character in that show.”

“With 'Nighty Night' series one, Oprah Winfrey's channel took it on, so she must have liked it.”

“I think my dad has a similar black sense of humour to mine, so perhaps it's just an inherited thing. I've got two little boys now, and I can see it with them as well. I don't know if you learn it off your parents - but my dad used to take me to see certain plays when I was quite young, so maybe that had an effect as well.”

“I love the spiritual side of religion, but the church, for me, is a place where I feel very repressed.”

“I still think of things for 'Jill' all the time. It's annoying, because I want to be able to find another character who I could write for indefinitely.”

“As a child, I just found a lot of things quite difficult. I found school quite overwhelming. There were just too many people. I wish I could have gone to a school with about five people. And if I saw someone bullying someone else, for example - I don't mean because I'm a perfect person, because I'm really not - but I'd always be, 'Well, why?'”