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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. "

" If a gig goes badly, my main worry is, 'Will these people come back?' Because that will affect my ability to pay the mortgage - but nowadays, I don't really mind what happens, as I think if it all goes wrong for real, you still have to go with it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Things that I do tend not to work out commercially. "

" I think Russell Brand's books should be criticised for being rubbish - but it is true that there's a professional class of opinion-former who has a financial interest in their job not being taken away. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think what I do is borderline art. Most people who do borderline art have to have other jobs, so I'm very grateful. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think a comedian has to be low status on some level; that gives you the right to do all sorts of jokes about all sorts of different kinds of people. "

" 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. "

" Personally, I don't have a Twitter account. I like to be in control of the way the stand up of Stewart Lee is perceived, I don't want to have to engage with individual people. Also, when I do look at it, loads of factually inaccurate things about me are written. "

" It's difficult to write anything at the moment, as every week there's a seismic shift in world events. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I read in the 'Daily Mail' that I'm one of these 'foul-mouthed comedians.' But I'm much cleaner than the people they like. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to think that a 70-year-old - particularly someone like Alan Bennett - would like it, because they've seen a lot of stuff. "

" Stand-up is more of an organic process. An imagined dialogue with the audience. "

" If I could travel through time, I wouldn't go back and change anything in my life, because I'm delighted with the way it's turned out. "

" I'm forever reading on the Internet that I apparently cultivate this audience and never go badly. "

" I'd quite like to write a book about comics, actually. But trying to write about comics as literature, which I don't think anyone's really done before. Sometimes they're more like fan books, and I'd quite like to write one about the Marvel universe over the last 50 years. It's an unprecedented achievement to create that length of continuity. "

" 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. "

" I really, really love being on stage now. "

" 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. "

" 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. "