Does anyone really go into nursing intending to be apathetic, cold and removed from suffering? I find that very difficult to believe.

I can honestly say I've never sold any arms to a repressive foreign regime while reassuring everyone at home that the weapons will be used for nice things.

I read that book 'Fat is a Feminist Issue', got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.

I think there's a danger that we're moving towards a state where the people we are expected to admire are almost not human anymore, and I don't like that. I prefer it when someone looks like a nice person, and you think, 'I could have a laugh with them in the pub.'

Everything becomes magnified at night. Sounds travel in a different way, it's dark, and everything seems far more spooky.

There's lots of different feminist groups. It's not as straightforward as just looking like a plumber.

Managers of hospitals over the years have been increasingly recruited from outside the health service, and although their experience of running a supermarket chain might allow them to balance the books, it does not mean they have any insight into how a ward should be managed and patients best served.

I used to do bell ringing in Benenden church. It was really good fun, actually. My best friend's dad was the local vicar, and so it was expected as her best friend that I would go to church every Sunday with her.

I must be an anorexic because an anorexic looks in the mirror and sees a fat person.

I went on the pill when I was 16, put on four stone... so that proved to be a very effective contraceptive.

Even nice things don't make you happy when you're tired.

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.

The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.

I've always liked to think I could do anything I wished as well as - if not better than - a man. But I wasn't very good at rally driving.

You look across the board at comedy quiz shows, and they are mainly hosted by men.

As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan.

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.

There are two types of people in this world: one who opens a packet of biscuits, has one and puts the rest back in the cupboard, and one who eats the whole packet in one go.

When I got married, the Sun ran the headline: 'Here comes the bride, all fat and wide.' Luckily, it was a few days after the wedding - but it was still hideous to read at a great romantic moment.

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

Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.

Comics who consider themselves 'mavericks' or think the crowd doesn't get them are normally lousy comics.

I never care if the audience groans.

I don't watch too much television because I want to write something, and you never want to be influenced by other things that are on - and if they're really funny it'll just depress me because it's something I'm not a part of.