Tim Minchin

“I had lunch with Andrew Lloyd Webber at the end of 2011 because my musical 'Matilda' is in one of the theatres that he owns in London.”

“I am no nihilist. I am not even a cynic. I am, actually, rather romantic. And here’s my idea of romance: You will soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough and, god, it’s tiring. And you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. And then you’ll beold. And then you’ll be dead.”

“My shows are basically about ethics.”

“I was naive. Before 'Larrikins,' I thought passion, hard work, and a skill set will mean that anything you want to do will get done. I don't think that anymore.”

“I'm a comedian because I want people to like me. That's really why all comedians are comedians.”

“If you don't have anything different to say, don't say it at all. That's my rule.”

“I was incredibly jealous of friends who had bit parts in 'Home and Away.' I just hoped I'd somehow be allowed into this game.”

“The thing I love about my career is the variety and that people can't predict what I'm going to do next.”

“I often get references to 'slight' or whatever, and my weight's been a thing for me my whole life. I have to really, really work. I train six times a week to just be normal and not be fat.”

“I just want people to hold themselves to account about what they think more, because I strongly believe that the way to live a moral life is to not allow yourself to have beliefs which are easy but which don't make sense.”

“London's my favourite place. I lived in Crouch End for years and come back as much as I possibly can.”

“If we talk about 'Groundhog Day' as a humanistic text - we only have one life, and there's no punishment or reward afterwards - then the wisdom is, just be kind because that will make you happy and the people around you happy.”

“London represents the idea that someone pulled away the set from my life and replaced it with another. 'Here is your new baby. Here is your new life. And now you do comedy.' Without being smug, it's the best fun.”

“Comedy actually works best when you're living in an OK world, and you are pointing out the hypocrisy in apathy.”

“I don't like courting controversy because I don't like people not liking me.”

“Arts degrees are awesome. And they help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none. Don’t go looking for it. Searching for meaning is like searching for a rhyme scheme in a cookbook: you won’t find it and you’ll bugger up your soufflé.”

“I never watch television, although, the other night, my wife and I caught an episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' from Season Six. It's the only series of which I've ever watched every single episode.”

“I had terrible ear problems and asthma and allergies. I spent quite a bit of time in hospital up to the age of eight so was not - am still not - extraordinarily intelligent.”

“Tim Minchin's musings on Tony, the first 'fish' ever to have feet:Imagine what Tony would think, standing there on his brand new feet on the brink of the beginnings of mankind as we know it... if he could look forward just a few short... hundreds of millions of years... to see one of his descendants... an Israeli Jew by the name of Jesus, having a nail hammered through his feet... the very feet that Tony provided him with, as a punishment for having a, sort of, schizophrenic discourse with a God who was created by Mankind to explain the existence of feet in the absence of the knowledge of the existence of Tony.”

“My most visceral childhood memory is getting home from hockey. Much of our family time revolved around hockey, and it rains a lot in Perth, and we'd get home tired and wet in our tracksuits, and the smell I'd hold in my nose is of mother's vegetable soup.”