Professional humorists and cartoonists have to go through a stage in which they have to kill their own internal editor just so they can get stuff out. So whether they believe it or not, they need me on the other end to do that editing for them.
People think that because of my act that I must have a really busy mind and I must be driven. I really am not. I quite like going outside and looking at spiders on a hedge in my garden and stuff.
My one big rule for the over-40s is don't try to dress like an 18-year-old. It's possible to be 'on-trend' when you're older - you just have to look for the right stuff. You don't have to spend a fortune, either.
I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day.
The first song that I wrote was when I was with The Del Rios. I was like 14 years old but I was always putting my thoughts down on paper even before then because it was like an escape - a way of unleashing all the stuff.
There's a million new people in the studio every day creating new stuff so I really had to be on my toes with this one so I could get it out before somebody else could.
Gadgets are usually the last thing I think about, and if there's something new, I'll get to the store for the final shipment of the first generation when it's on sale. So I have last year's stuff.
I get my flow from Daddy, my singing ability from Mommy, the camera stuff from both. That's just what happens when you hang out with the Smiths.
I'm a big fan of, like, wearing old, vintage slips and stuff as outdoor wear. I got, like, a pair of these little silk bloomers. I think they were even, like, considered underwear in the '40s. I wore them as shorts the other day.
My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, really. I wouldn't say it's a career in fashion. The range is all day-to-day stuff that I'd put on and use myself.
In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.
I like finding stuff that I suck at and trying to get better. So I'm taking classes, getting myself comfortable in an acting scene. You've got to work out those ticks. For instance, standing up used to be really hard for me. I act much better if I'm ...
I'm not much of a plotter. I start off with an inciting incident, and in classic crime fiction what happens is that all the action flows from that incident. It's very comfy when it all ties up and feels like a complete universe, but my stuff doesn't ...
I never got tied down to any social scene. I was just into creating stuff. And I think, even today, that's how I'm able to work and move between so many different genres - I want to be part of what's happening, I want to make new things.
I'll never forget the day when a woman came up to me and said, 'No, you could never be on a magazine cover. Your face features don't work; your eyes are small, you have a small face but a big nose.' I was only 14 and I had never noticed any of that s...
Joan Cusack is one of my favorite comedic actresses, and every part she plays is so different. She does the wackiest stuff and somehow it works. I like watching her a lot, and I think you can always go further and pull back. That's something I really...
I remember thinking that a girdle was barbaric, and that never in a million years would I treat myself like a sleeping bag being shoved into a stuff sack. Never! Instead, I would run marathons and work out and be in perfect shape and reject the tyran...
No question; language can free us of feeling, or almost. Maybe that's one of its functions - so we can understand the world without becoming entirely overwhelmed by it.
Because even though the truth can set you free, that doesn't mean it won't be painful.
In America, the glass is neither full nor empty. It is buy one, get one free.
In ordinary life, the action of a third party does not free the contractor from an obligation; but the advantage of making a contract with heaven is that intentions are valid currency.
