- Warren Buffet
- Abraham Lincoln
- Charlie Chaplin
- Mary Anne Radmacher
- Alice Walker
- Albert Einstein
- Steve Martin
- Mark Twain
- Michel Montaigne
- Voltaire
Find most favourite and famour Authors from A.A Milne to Zoe Kravitz.
I mean, my stand-up is very honest and exposing in this way. I probably carry that into everything I do.
Romesh Ranganathan
In the 10 years I've been with my wife we've probably argued twice.
It's such a privileged thing to say, but I'm still that same lazy person!
We are entering an age where people can claim to know more about what really happened than the people who were there. Where people will dismiss eyewitness accounts, on the basis of their gut feelings; where they will refute scientific discoveries because the scientist just doesn't look trustworthy.
Our house was repossessed and we lived in a B&B until we got a council house. It was a struggle, but Mum just got her head down, found cleaning jobs and never complained. I owe her a lot, so I now do everything she says.
Mum came to Crawley from Sri Lanka at 19 after marrying my dad. Later, Dad had financial problems and they split for a while.
When I started doing stand-up, I resigned from my job as a maths teacher and, three days before I was due to leave, my dad passed away.
I don't believe in make-or-break moments in your life. If you screw something up, it can knock you down, but that only means you'll be better when you get back to where you were before.
You can be good at comedy, which means you'll be given spots, but beyond that it is luck that pushes you to the next level. There are loads of brilliant comedians who haven't had the breaks, and plenty of average comedians who have.
My mum's very spiritual, and I think she just tells everyone that I'm spiritual, too.
I just write what I think is funny, or interesting, and hopefully everything else will take care of itself. There's no strategy to anything.
If you're racist and you come out and say it's because of Brexit, then great. Then I know definitely not to talk to you, rather than you give me a sideways glance in a shop. Now I know, I've seen your Facebook post.
I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.
My family is all obsessed with comedy. I grew up watching a lot of comedy in the house. I used to watch Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy with my dad. But my mom is more into slapstick stuff.
I worry about my children, actually. I'm trying to give them a decent upbringing but I sometimes worry that that means they're going to be kind of mediocre adults. Like maybe I should throw them out for a bit and give them some adversity.
My parents are super westernized. My mom listens to western music, my dad was like a pub landlord so he properly embraced English life. But the truth is they both came from tiny villages in Sri Lanka.
People who are comfortable in their own skin I admire, but you don't know what's really going on. If you meet someone who says they nail being a human, they are as far away from nailing it as a human as you can possibly imagine.
What I'm like with lack of sleep is that I let the devil in, so if I'm tired the slightest thing will put me into a bad place.
The experience of watching other standups is either: 1) you see your mate doing standup and it's really bad and you're heartbroken, or 2) You see your mate doing really well and it's heartbreaking.
I've done bits where I've perhaps talked about my kids annoying me and you hope that the audience realise that you do actually love your children. You can still be a good parent and be frustrated by your kids.
People say that I'm quite grumpy and negative on stage and that I surely can't be like that off it, but I really am.
I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn't like them.
I have long been guilty of dressing too young for my age.
I was terrible at sport at school. I was fat, which made things slightly tougher, but it also meant that people were encouraging to the point of patronising.
My childhood memories are filled with hugs and kisses from both my mum and dad. My mum has a thing about kissing you an odd number of times: if she kisses you once, all good, but if she kisses you twice, then you know another one has to follow and, weirdly, she tends to go for the forehead.
My garage/office is strewn with Post-its, cards, folders, notebooks, yoga mats and multicoloured pens, all purchased in a quest to unlock a magic way of working that will ensure my ascension to next-level creativity.
I have read that, when you are writing or working on something creative, and your attention wanders, your brain is processing and working on what you have just done. But I find it hard to believe that my brain is really taking five hours to fully process the seven minutes I have managed to spend focused on one thing.
When my wife and I promised the rest of our lives to each other, I doubt either of us suspected that life would involve quite so much TV.
I thoroughly enjoy my children's birthdays, despite the fact their parties are an apocalyptic mix of hall-booking, Nerf-gun-hiring, refreshment-organising and talking to parents whose names you've forgotten.
When you spend your day writing comedy, particularly with others, the discussion of jokes and how far to push things with a group of unoffendable colleagues means that your grasp of what is acceptable in normal conversation is often skewed.
I would not have succeeded as a comedian had I not had some hugely lucky breaks.
I owe much of my success to Seann Walsh. He kept recommending me for Live At The Apollo until eventually the producers offered me a gig.
I have long believed that success stories need a bit of balance. We only hear from people who risked it all, and found it paid off.
Being away a lot on tour means that my family has to suffer an inordinate amount of overcompensation, as I return home with skewed ideas of what counts as quality time. I will force everyone into a cinema trip, insistent that three hours in the dark in silence is the perfect way for us all to re-engage.
My life consists of intense focus on urgent areas of development, and then abandonment of that focus shortly afterwards.
Trying to be funny is arguably the least funny thing you can do.
We've all seen comedians look like they're reaching just a little bit too much for the laugh. This is counterproductive. The conceit of standup is that it is effortless, which makes the prospect of generating new comedy a tricky one: you are trying to be funny without looking like you are trying to be funny.
Some of the best comedy comes from squeezing humour from tragedy and struggle, but the main pursuit of comedy should be laughter.
Trumpeting diversity undermines what you are trying to achieve in the first place. It should happen without fanfare.
Black Panther is a great film'. It has the most compelling villain of any Marvel movie, and it deals admirably with the issue of diminishing jeopardy in a million superhero films where the world is going to end.
Everyone seems so excited by the fact that music is more accessible, people can find new artists more easily and it's cheaper, without focusing on the potential negatives, not least of which is that idiots can more easily listen to your favourite music.
Consuming art should involve investment and risk.
My problem is that we are all listening to music in a more disposable fashion.
I am not obliged to tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs, nor am I qualified to do so.
Veganism is a point of contention all year round. So much so that many vegans cut themselves off from the rest of society, huddling together for warmth and smugness, and using online forums to vent their disgust at the morally corrupt dairy- and meat-eating savages who make up most of the populace.
It's much easier for the vegan to remain at home and do their own Christmas dinner. That way, you can enjoy your food without someone making some hilarious comment about your stuffed pepper.
The error that many vegans make is forgetting that our food has novelty value. Non-vegans think our food is awful, but are fascinated by the prospect of something vegan being delicious. They want to disprove it.
Sri Lanka's interpretation of western cuisine is pretty diabolical. Sri Lankan food itself is ace, however, and they bloody love a buffet. Even if you go to a basic-looking cafe, they can knock up four or five different curries for you very quickly.
Having curry for breakfast is a thing of beauty.
I'm not suggesting I met a significant enough number of them to constitute a robust sample size, but I am saying that my general impression of Sri Lankans is that they are friendly, chatty and hospitable people.