I don't want to do the same thing over and over again.

I thought The Office was good, though I didn't think of it as a sitcom, just as a very good programme.

I fear we might be losing the basic human facility to be alone - and with that you throw out independent decision-making, what to trust, what not to trust; key stuff - a perilous loss.

Showing off seemed to me to be a highly valuable and necessary activity when I was 20.

I get a phone call once every 18 months from some mad person who wants me to do something for less than no money and they give me about a week's notice. That's my film career, most of the time.

You're not going to learn anything if you're not prepared to go flat, so I'm very happy to go flat.

It's true that I have spoken about doing a book before, but then everyone you speak to is planning to write a book.

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room; you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything. I've written lots of material, but how do you memorise 90 minutes? That's one hell of a long speech. I've always had problems with that.

I don't go to different countries to criticise their political system and tell them what they should be doing - what do I know?

I never really had a career, to be honest with you. I never in my life sat down and planned it. I have thought, 'Oh, I'd like to do this,' like anybody would. But I'm not the type that says, 'If I do this, it will lead to that.'

I don't watch a whole lot of stand up. Mainly I prefer to read writers; they make me laugh the most. Something gets you when you're alone and someone's voice is coming through their work. There's a different quality to it that stays with you a bit more.

America's work ethic is non-stop; it's not even enshrined in law that workers have to get their two weeks holiday money. But Americans work harder than everyone else I can think of.

I wouldn't be in a huge hurry to go back to Kansas. It was just bizarre. There's a lot of very, very heavy set people who believe in whatever they were told, because they didn't seem to get out very much or be interested in leaving where they were. They just didn't seem that curious, and I find that a little hard to deal with.

You have to assume that you're talking to the most intelligent, tuned-in audience you could ever get. That's the way you're going to get the best out of people. Whether they know you or not shouldn't matter for comedy. They should get to know you pretty quickly. and they should be having a good time pretty quickly.

I'm just trying to understand what's around me as much as anyone else is, really. To draw a bead on a moving target.

It probably says something really clinically terrible about my character that I need to get up on a stage and go 'Ra ra ra' in front of people.

I'm just a guy who happens to work in public from time to time. I've built a reputation as an established comic, not as a celebrity - a celebrity is someone who is famous but doesn't do anything.

I would never really analyse what I do. I leave that to other people - I'm not a critic. I just want to get on with whatever I have in hand, you know? Just try to make the best job of the available material.

I really can't describe what my stand-up is like - people see it and they say it's like that, or it's like this, and that's really up to them, that's fine, but I don't sit around all day analysing it. I just try and enjoy a show and interest myself because if I don't do that then I won't interest anybody else.

Stand-up came naturally to me because people in Ireland talk. But that's not talking on panel shows; it is structured fun. It reminds me of some tragic aunt clapping her hands and bouncing into a room and announcing we should all play games... and if we don't we are all a rotten spoilsport.

I've been writing since I was very young, even before I was a teenager. As far as I'm concerned, I am a writer - whether my writing's spoken or written in a blog, paper, book or printed on the side of a submarine.

When I was a child, I wanted to watch things that made me laugh. It's attacking boredom, as simple as that. I was 19 when I first went to a comedy club - I wanted to do it, so I gave it a try and that was it. I found my office.

I do think it's perfectly natural and human to want to invest belief in something. It's just a facet of who we are. What do I believe in? I believe in the obvious things. The people I'm close to and my work - it's not complicated.

You can laugh at somebody because they are innocent, and because they are naive or they are about to walk into a wall, but if somebody's giving you stuff, if somebody's talking, giving you their take on things, what makes you laugh, generally speaking, is going to be somebody who is telling it in an angry way.

Paper acts as an eraser on the mind, as soon as you look at what you've written.

I've always been a big consumer of American journalism over the years and had an interest in the history of it and of the press in America; how it has changed.

I'm delighted to make as many people feel ashamed as possible. There's probably a site like that for everybody. I've heard Newt Gingrich has his own as well.

I'm organised in some ways, but not in others.

I'm fascinated by how you'll change your position so many times over a lifetime, but really what you're doing is occupying a series of positions on a landscape.

Do your own thing. Speak in your voice.

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room, you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything.

I actually very rarely see comedy myself, and although I admire the work of some comics, it does come from all over, so I'll get a charge out of some fiction writers and poets.

The terror of failure can make you feel like a failure. So a bunch of people think you're not very good at your thing. How much do you invest in what they say? How much do you care? Failure is not putting yourself on the line.

My drive to put myself on the line comes from boredom. From that feeling when you go to bed and think, 'What did I do today?' It doesn't have to be something monumental, just a feeling that you really tried to look at something, or look into something.

I don't know that you're able to measure your aggregate wisdom as you go through life. I can't say that I ever feel that I'm sitting on top of a growing mound of wisdom.

I've seen stand up comedy, and after a while you start to notice that a lot of people are doing things that are like a lot of other people. There can be a bit of a herd mentality, and that's obviously less interesting because there's less going on. I'm just being totally frank with you.

I do not walk around imaging myself to be intimidating or smart.

I'm Irish, yeah, but I don't need to get up on a soapbox about it.

I wanted to show off - a simple impulse or drive; in much the same way as some kids wanted to play football, I wanted to show off. Not complicated in that sense, very natural; it just depends on how you want to show off.

I was lucky in the sense that I was never blessed with an overly reflective nature.

What is universal can be surprising. Over time you find the kind of stuff which has people thinking 'That is just something that occurred to me... there's something wrong with me', is in fact stuff that is universal.