I knew that the show was coming and they wanted me to have a co-host. And so I asked Mary Hart and she was one of the first. Before that it was Sarah Purcell then Cindy Garvey. Then Mary Hart, then Cindy Garvey again here in New York, then Anne Abernathy and then Kathy Lee, who stayed 15 years. And now Kelly has been there eight.

I'm moving on. I should have made that clear when I made the announcement. I guess I wasn't clear. If people think you're leaving a show after all these years, you might be retiring. So I understand where they're coming from, but I should have impressed the fact that I hope I'm just moving on right now.

I would do the morning show and then just walk over to the network side of the building here at ABC in New York and sit down and start it up again and introduce the 10 contestants, and then introduce the 10 - the fastest finger question, and pick one of them, put them in the seat before you finally got to asking them the questions.

I guess people wonder if I'm the same on camera as I am off, and I'm pretty much the same, I really am. But that's always asked of me.

I actually imagined 'Thunderbolts' as a straight-up comedy book in a lot of ways, like a very dark comedy book, whereas 'Red Lanterns' is more of a cosmic saga that has some jokes every once in a while.

With roasting, you've really got to bring your A-game. I hate to admit it, but I probably think and obsess more about the roasts than my own series. Because there's so much attention focused on the roasts. It's like the 'Super Bowl' of comedy. Everybody is going to talk about it. Forever.

I wanted to be on Broadway, but in musical comedy.

In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.