Quotes By Jo Brand

I think there's a far more general audience now because I've done more populist stuff on telly.

So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully - which I didn't at the beginning.

I'd love to live in Kent but it's all a question of work.

I do say no to lots of things, actually! I know it doesn't look like it. But I have a tendency to a) be rubbish at saying no, and b) be pushed by some kind of Protestant work ethic.

Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.

You don't really see ugly people that are old, or a bit grotty and smelly, in the media. If a Martian came down, they would think we were all tall, thin, attractive and wealthy.

I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.

I thought I was funny as a kid.

I don't know if we will ever try again because those sort of things are very hard to organise but yes, I've known Doon for years and John as well but I hadn't met Will before, and he turned out to be a good laugh.

People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare.

I have big friends who won't go swimming because they're too embarrassed about it. I feel that's such a shame, because actually people should be encouraging fat people who are exercising to do it, not pointing and laughing.

With two small children, I haven't had a wash since 2001 so the chance to go shopping is way down the list. It is something I do intend to get.

My mum always felt that women deserved as much as men, and should have as much power, so I suppose I opted to go into a very male-dominated arena to try and prove that.

Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.

I just don't like travelling very much.

By crying on my bed, drinking quite a lot and feeling tempted by drugs. Well, just not reading it to be perfectly honest with you. I know it's a bit of a copout.

One of the guys that used to run it - for some reason I've no idea why he used to call me the Sea Monster and I was just looking around for a name and thought that'll do. That lasted for a couple of years probably.

They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but for most people, by the time it's ready to eat, they just don't fancy it any more.

The reason I used a name was because I was a nurse at the time, and I didn't want my name in Timeout and people from working coming along and taking the piss.

Whatever situation you are in, that is what is normal for you.

I have a utilitarian approach to dressing; as long as I quite like it and it covers me up, I don't care what it is.

There are 10-20 times more male comics than female comics; it's something to do with the social structure of society.

There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I'm doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much.

And I also felt that no one in an audience could abuse me worse than the sort of abuse I had had at work as a psychiatric nurse.

When you get to know someone, you find there's something nasty in their woodshed.

People can forgive each other.

I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach.

I was really, because I thought it was extremely excruciating when I watched a tape of it, that my husband taped for me and I never watched it again after that.

There's a general sense that women are more relaxed and less defensive in comedy than they used to be. I think it's easier than it was but underlying it all there is still a pretty sexist view of women on stage, which to me hasn't changed that much.

I made a supreme effort not to do that thing that parents do, which is to bore people without children to death by going on and on about how funny their children are, so there's none of that hopefully.