My mum's very spiritual, and I think she just tells everyone that I'm spiritual, too.

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.

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.

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.

Mum came to Crawley from Sri Lanka at 19 after marrying my dad. Later, Dad had financial problems and they split for a while.

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.

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.

It's such a privileged thing to say, but I'm still that same lazy person!

In the 10 years I've been with my wife we've probably argued twice.

I mean, my stand-up is very honest and exposing in this way. I probably carry that into everything I do.

What we're increasingly seeing is comics are becoming better known across the world. They're recording shows wherever they are, then putting them online for everyone. It has definitely changed in that way.

When I first started watching stand-up, I fell in love with American comedy before British comedy.

I've always loved American stand-up. Richard Pryor is one of the main reasons I got into stand-up. After Pryor, I made my way through the other great American comics, then finally got into the British ones over here.

My mum's financial plan is: Romesh becomes a millionaire.

I have Asian friends - second generation - and I am the worst in terms of being in touch with my heritage.

Actually, the reason I'm a huge Arsenal fan is because when my dad moved over from Sri Lanka, he lived in north London and fell in love with Arsenal. Then he moved to East Grinstead and bought a pub, which he turned into an Arsenal pub.

The contrast of being in the spotlight when you're very young and then suddenly not can be really bad for your mental state.

David Beckham is always seen as the thickest man on the planet, too daft to complete a jigsaw puzzle. But then you watch old footage of him playing and every time he plays a ball across the field, he's intuitively working out the trajectory of the ball.

I used to do standup about footballers; they are easy targets because they are traditionally seen as stupid.

There's nothing less funny than somebody trying to be funny. I loved Jack Dee, then I met him and I became the least funny human to exist because of my desperation to say something amusing.

People assume that your audience is full of people who love you. But, typically, it's one person in four who's chosen to come and has convinced some other people to go with them.

I loved stand-up, but I never thought you could do it as a job.

Announcing a diversity initiative, or making it a cause, exerts unwanted pressure.

Because let's be clear about this: birthdays are for children. It's the one day of the year where they get properly spoilt and are the centre of attention, and they get the presents they really, really want.