Growing up, I remember my parents feeling a little wary of 'The Simpsons.' This was the late eighties, and there was a wave of articles about TV shows that were bad for America. Then we all started watching it and loved it.

I think a lot of writers, male and female, write as if their parents were killed in a car accident when they were 2, and they have no one to hold accountable. And unfortunately, I don't have that. I have parents who I care about what they think.

There's a female writer-performer thing going on in TV right now.

Live performance really terrifies me. I haven't done it, really, in years. I think that's why I retired from my brief career in stand-up.

Whenever we're on the red carpet, we look like competition winners. It's a joke.

Whatever makes you laugh is fine, and all we can do as comedy professionals is try to steer you towards something that we think is a little better - but not put you down or just perplex you in the process.

And if you can offer an explanation as to why it doesn't work then you've got to the whole root of comedy.

Music is very similar to comedy: It's all about texture, timing, context, vocabulary, performance. When someone's onstage doing a solo, essentially it's the same thing as what a comedian does. They're in the moment. They're listening.