Death doesn't frighten me, it bothers me. It bothers me for example that someone can be there tomorrow but me I am no longer there. What bothers me is no longer being alive, not being dead.

I always look at a group of people who want to attempt an enterprise greater than their means. They begin on this enterprise and they fail.

The themes that make one laugh always stem from poverty, hunger, misery, old age, sickness, and death. These are the themes that make Italians laugh, anyway.

I think there's a certain objectivity that comes from being Canadian. You're partly British and partly American; you have a good bird's-eye view of both countries. So much of the comedy that comes out of Canada is impersonation - it's less 'look at me' than it is 'look at me playing other people.'

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.

Now, everybody, I suppose, is aware that in recent years the silly business of divination by dreams has ceased to be a joke and has become a very serious science.

That's humour - doing what funny people have done since comedy began without being edgy and pushing boundaries.