Matt Roper

“I once knew a girl who didn't know where anywhere was in the world. Not a clue. I asked her if she knew where Africa was and she answered, 'Is it the orange one on a map?'”

“I can't abide small talk.”

“Looking through family photographs now is like watching an episode of 'Dad's Army.' My relatives seem to drop like flies around me. Who's next? Will it be someone I can't stand?”

“I want truth. I'm crying out to hear it. I need it like oxygen.”

“I've spent so much of my adult life in relationships that it's actually quite pleasant to be alone at last. I turned thirty-six the other day, which staggers me when I think about it.”

“I'm the worst ad anyone could possibly be for abstaining from anything.”

“If comedians were truly free of repression, there would not be an inherent need to perform for the love of a roomful of total strangers.”

“I have two vintage typewriters. One just about works and the other hasn't a hope in hell, bless it. But they're both beautiful, and they'll stay with me just as long as there's a roof over my head.”

“We must remember to enjoy ourselves.”

“Seven thirty in the morning is too early for a man of my standing.”

“Milk which is just about to turn is akin to that moment spent on the cusp of failure in a dulled and fettered relationship.”

“Successful writers say you should never work from a desk with a view, and the view I have from this one is a huge distraction. There's a garden bursting with fresh vegetation, and just beyond the high wall at the end of it, I can see the sign of the local pub across the road. Distractions, eh? I'm so easily led.”

“Here I sit, beneath the large window of a first-floor Georgian flat, exploring the corridors of my sordid imagination for comedic words of beauty.”

“I'm a Taurus, you know. A bull. I belong in a field.”

“I like a decent funeral, and God knows in my family we've seen enough of them. Looking through family photographs now is like watching an episode of 'Dad's Army.'”