Katherine Parkinson

“There are a few people who genuinely see the best in everyone.”

“'Family Guy' is relentlessly excellent.”

“Acting is about enhancing your life, not representing something that's missing.”

“When I was at school studying biology, I wanted to be a medical researcher. I did work experience at St Mary's Hospital in London, and I begged them to let me see the post mortems. So the first time I saw a naked male was at 15, when I saw an 89 year old man who had died of a brain hemorrhage.”

“I admire any woman who does stand-up, but frankly I'd rather pull out my own eyelids.”

“I've become one of those women who thrusts her engagement finger out all the time.”

“You do develop a taste as an actress: Chekhov, Ayckbourn: it's the combination of comedy and human drama. I would never want to do anything without comedy.”

“People don't realise what a nice thing it is for an actor to go to a job where they know or like everybody, because you're so often having to do new beginnings, starting off on set with people you don't know, having to introduce yourself and make friends.”

“Because I'd done 30 plays or so at Oxford, I thought that I was an actress anyway because that's what I was doing!”

“I did a lot of serious plays, and I did the Oxford Review as well, which is supposed to be funny, but I'm not sure how funny we were when we did it. Then, when I finished my course, it was only then that I decided to go to drama school and try and do acting because I was enjoying it so much and so on.”

“I'm going to get myself one of those, um, movable computers - what do you call them... ? Laptops! I am bad. I still call my radio a wireless.”

“Carol Burnett, who played Miss Hannigan in 'Annie', is as funny as it gets.”