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" I suppose we are what we are, and we use the evidence to confirm what we believe. "
Stewart Lee
Suppose
Use
Believe
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" I'm in this for the long haul, I want to be doing this until I die. I am a standup comedian. I know a lot of people say I'm not, but I am. "
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" I don't think I'd want to be a comedian today if I saw it on the telly. I wouldn't think it was a thing for weirdoes and drop-outs; I'd think it was a thing for squares who wanted to be famous. "
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" The only reason I look back is to check if I've been doing something wrong. I look at things from even three years ago and think, 'I wouldn't do that now.' Your life changes. "
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" Stand-up is more of an organic process. An imagined dialogue with the audience. "
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" Controversy seems to be a by-product of what I do, rather like offence is the by-product of a dog urinating on the pavement. It just happens. "
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" I work a lot of things out on stage nowadays rather than writing them in big blocks. "
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" I thought it would be a funny concept to publish a book about stand-up comedy with Faber, the poetry publisher, and to apply to stand-up the same sort of weight of annotation that you would to a classic work of literature, an epic poem. I thought that would be funny. "
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Poetry
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Work
" The me you see on stage is largely a construct, based on me at my worst, my most annoying, my most petty, and my most patronizing. "
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See
Stage
Worst
" Nothing is too controversial, but you have to think about how to do it with sensitivity. I don't try to be insensitive. I think really, really carefully about exactly what things mean and how they will affect people. "
Stewart Lee
People
Mean
Think
" There's an assumption that my audience is all these bearded twats from Dalston. But actually, quite a lot of older people go. For them, it's like pre-alternative comedy, when there was Dave Allen or Jackie Mason or someone. Also, weirdly, because I don't really swear, they're not scared off. "
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Someone
Audience
Comedy
" It's difficult to write anything at the moment, as every week there's a seismic shift in world events. "
Stewart Lee
World
Week
Moment
" It's interesting to me that apparently distasteful comments from the Right against weak targets tend to draw a lot less media fire than apparently distasteful comments from the Left against hard targets. That's one of the threads that runs through the show and that people hopefully pick up on. "
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Interesting
Fire
People
" Lots of stand-up showcases on TV are made by production companies that also represent acts as clients, so there tends to be a demonstrable bias towards a certain group of people. "
Stewart Lee
Production
Bias
Clients
" I really, really love being on stage now. "
Stewart Lee
Being
Love
Now
" When I started on the London circuit in 1989, nationwide there were about 150 to 200 people that were what you could call alternative comedians - that weren't club comics. Now, last year when the Laughing Horse chain of clubs held a new acts competition, a thousand people entered. So, there are 800 people more. "
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You
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" When I did 'Jerry Springer: The Opera,' there was a big fuss, largely centered around the misrepresentation of its content. Had Twitter existed then, that would have been over in a week because people who had actually seen it would have been able to get control of the story through social media. "
Stewart Lee
People
Media
Control
" Sometimes, I read that I'm this leftwing comic who just goes on about politics the whole time. Other times, I read that it's just surreal nonsense about crisps. It's both of those. "
Stewart Lee
Time
Politics
Nonsense
" The idea of what's acceptable and what's shocking, that's where I investigate. I mean, you can't be on 'Top Gear,' where your only argument is that it's all just a joke and anyone who takes offence is an example of political correctness gone mad, and then not accept the counterbalance to that. "
Stewart Lee
Argument
Accept
You
" For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines. "
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You
Always
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" Anyone in the arts has had an experience of seeing someone who they related to doing something and thinking, 'I could do that.' If you have one generation where you force its hand a bit, then the next one fills in the gaps, because it's seen an example of what can be done. "
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Thinking
Experience
You
" If I had grown up in London, I wouldn't have been as keen to become a comedian or a writer. I'd have been able to see a lot of good films and music and comedy. I'd have been distracted. As it was, I had to make it. "
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Comedy
Become
Good
" You get annoyed about things in real life, and then the tragic thing is that while you are moaning on the awful injustice and suffering of something, something grimly comic will then strike you about it, like a parasite feeding off the misery of the world. "
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Suffering
World
Life
" Oh, I can't sleep, whatever - it's a huge problem. The comedian's thing is you self-medicate with alcohol and knock yourself out - but obviously, that's not a long-term strategy. "
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Alcohol
You
Yourself
" I'm very grateful to my adoptive family. My mother sorted my life out. "
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Grateful
Mother
Life
" I don't know where the ideas come from, and it's terrifying. They seem to be absolute flukes. When I was in my 20s, I'd walk around with a notebook all the time and make sure I wrote down anything that occurred to me. Now I'm just hoping that some sort of event will descend on me. "
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Me
Walk
Time
" I grew up in Solihull, on the edge of what was then the Birmingham conurbation. It was a good place to write comedy from. I didn't feel allegiance to anything. I didn't have working-class pride or upper-class superiority. "
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Comedy
Edge
Feel
" I went to a hypnotist to learn how not to use drinking a pint before you go on as a way of giving you the confidence to just fly at it, irrespective of the fear. That's not a long-term strategy, when you do as many gigs as I do. "
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Fear
Confidence
Strategy
" Now I've got kids, you wouldn't want them to suffer because of a perception of you. I try to be very careful where I do things and make sure I know why I've done them. I wouldn't want them to be stigmatized. "
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Want
You
Try
" I'm forever reading on the Internet that I apparently cultivate this audience and never go badly. "
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Never
Reading
Audience
" Normally, when I write a tour show, it's got a title that means something - a beginning, a middle and an end - and some kind of storyline and ideas going through it over two hours. "
Stewart Lee
Two
Over
Beginning