I believe in a funny way the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

I'm not a believer in the pratfall. I don't think it's funny just to have someone fall down.

Yes I believe blue material is funny but if that's all you've got you're dead in the water. It's not good.

I don't believe that anybody has come to a conclusion on why something is funny. It's funny because it's ridiculous and it's ridiculous for different reasons at different times.

Here is my prescription to heal all wounds. Watch the film 'Funny Girl' at least five times eat at least 45 chocolate bars and hang out with all those friends you blew off to hang out with your ex. I truly believe that through a combination of Nutella old pals and Barbra Streisand we can achieve happiness and very probably world peace.

Being funny it turns out is like being a bank. It's a confidence trick. As long as everyone believes in you you are fine.

When I was a little kid I wrote this play about all these characters living in a haunted house. There was a witch who lived there and a mummy. When they were all hassling him this guy who bought the house - I can't believe I remember this - he said to them 'Who's paying the mortgage on this haunted house?' I thought that was really funny.

I was so afraid to even read a paper in front of my classmates. It is very funny because at that point my teachers would never have believed that I could speak in front of an audience of over 2 000 people.

Jon Stewart is exactly the same guy he's always been only with money. He knows that the moment he really believes he's important the funny goes away and he becomes Bill O'Reilly except shorter and Jewish.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.