Absolute faith can blind you to the consequences of the actions you allow. It can tell you it's okay to drop bombs on another country, or that it's okay to hate a group of people such as homosexuals.
A poll earlier this year showed that 42 per cent of Americans believe we're in the End Times.
I have deep respect for people's individual faith, but when faith gets connected to the machinery of state, or the machinery of hate, I find it very confronting.
Pressure and stress is the common cold of the psyche.
If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.
It's something that has informed quite a lot of my comedy - that idea of someone who is always trying to get in there with the right crowd, always trying to be a certain type of person and never managing it.
In particular, I found praying very disturbing, like swimming with bricks tied to your feet. And yet I was drawn to it constantly.
In many ways, not fitting in has been a comedic asset and a comedic resource.
If I've inadvertently become some sort of role model for failed comedians, then it's really backfired very badly on me.
If I'm pushed, I'd also have to admit I don't like people with allergies. They just annoy me. There seems to be something far too self-centred about it. 'No thanks, I'm allergic.' Why not just say 'No thanks'? I wasn't asking for your medical history, I was just passing around the nuts. Trying to be
I'm not really part of any group or clique or gang because that's always been my nature.
I'm just part of a tradition of people who aren't pleased. I would never think anyone else who has the same attitude was getting it from me. I'd just think they're... sensible.
I was so keen to become a comedian that actually doing the comedy itself almost came second.
I was on various anti-depressants, but not for long - I didn't function very well on them. I felt sort of flattened out.
I tried to be as thorough as I can, but there is a responsibility that we all have, especially with something like AA which is dependant on anonymity. Once you start banging on about it the whole time, you are potentially damaging the whole concept of it.
I took religion much too seriously, however, and its overall effect was depressing. I would have really liked to discard it, but somehow I couldn't.
I think it is more a cautiousness that protects me from enthusiasm about things. I tend not to get excited. People perceive it as a scowl, which is fair enough.
I spent the first 25 years of my life not knowing what I wanted to do.
I really like rustic mediterranean cooking. And I like trying out curry takeaways.
I love mixing with comedians when I'm working with them, but when I'm not I don't feel the need to hang around with them.
I hate people who think it's clever to take drugs... like custom officers.
I had a longing for ritual, something I could cling to, a routine to make me feel well and contented. I hoped that reading Bible commentaries and theological critiques would nudge me closer to some kind of absolute that I could hold up as a torch to light my way.
I don't think anyone's particularly conscious of thinking suits are the thing, but when you see a comedian on stage in jeans and a t-shirt it doesn't matter how good they are - it always looks like amateur hour when they walk onto the stage.
I don't like men who blow-dry their hair. If you are a man and you blow-dry your hair, then I don't like you and that's all there is to it.
Comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin. A talent in one area might also lead to a predisposition in the other.
But I like going to church. If you've been brought up in the Church of England, it feels like visiting an elderly relative. And I think it's important that part of the kids' education is knowing about the Bible.
And people are intrigued if I really am as grumpy in real life. People feel a bit let down if I'm laughing or smiling.
I tend not to trust people who live in very tidy houses. I know that on the surface there is nothing wrong with a person being well-ordered and disciplined. Nothing, except that it leaves the impression of that person having lived in the confines of a stark institution which, although he or she has
I really hated fighting people and hurting them, but felt unable to stop.
I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere.
