I have nothing wrong with comics and writers poking fun at the President, as long as it's funny. When it's the same retread jokes with predictable punchlines, that's when it's offensive.
Daft Wee Stories' is, as the title says, daft wee stories. I just sort of rattled them out, tried to make them quite funny, with punchlines - they're kind of like sketches.
I love short stories. They're like small imploding universes. They are very tightly bound and controlled. I'd been wanting to write one for ages but just got tangled up in novels. The novel is the same in the sense that it is also a universe, but it explodes outwards with all that shrapnel going in several different directions. I don't see too much difference in the forms except for the fact that writing short stories is like sprinting rather than long-distance running.
The jokes are great but what really matters for a comedian is his performance, his whole attitude, and the laughs that he gets between the jokes rather than on top of the jokes.
If you do something that is not gags and punchlines and is character-based, where there are no jokes as such, then it all has to come from a place of truth, and I love that - I love nothing more than getting very serious about my comedy.
My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work.
I have this JPM thing: jokes per minute. I've worked out that I should get in about 12 punchlines in five minutes. I need them all. It's like when you walk down a road, if there's a lamp post that's out, it's fine if you can see the next one's alight, but if there's two out, that's a period of frightening darkness.
I don't tend to like race jokes. I don't like Jew jokes and black jokes, and they make me very uncomfortable, probably because I'm both. Well, I'm not black - but if I was then I could dance better.
The fact is that most crime novels contain a good many punchlines. They are just rather darker than the ones you might hear in a comedy club.
I think you have to do the stories that interest you and hope an audience likes it, rather than doing stories that you think the audience will like, whether you like them or not. I think there has to be something that you find compelling and interesting, and then hopefully an audience will agree with you.
I don't really want to tell jokes about trivia; I'd kind of rather tell jokes about things like life and death.
My mother and my great-aunt told me stories, like how when my grandfather first met my grandmother at a party, he noticed her long legs and was like, 'Woo woo!' I like to incorporate those stories into my music. They just seem to fit.
I like a naturalism to my dialogue and my comedy. I would rather have a few jokes sail by that might be more subtle than have every single joke hit hard. I would rather the comedy come out of character as opposed to feeling forced. Even if you're giving some laughs up for it.
I don't just like to use punchlines anymore, especially in arenas. They freak me out. There is nothing worse than 15,000 people waiting for a punchline.
[Photography] is always like a state of grace, like the appearance of something that I hadn't foreseen, that surprises me and stops me. If I only did what I had in mind, there would be no emotion. It would be like keeping one's eyes shut rather than open, like theorizing rather than seeing.
The inside jokes weren't jokes anymore. They had become stories. Nobody brought up the bad names or the bad times. And nobody felt sad as long as we could postpone tomorrow with more nostalgia.