Once I started doing stand-up, everything fell into place. That was when I started acting more; I felt like I'd found my place in the business.

I definitely am a performer, and there are different styles of stand-up; I mean, some people are writers and they get onstage to get jokes out, and that's definitely not what I do. I like to just go up and, if I'm telling a story about someone, I'll play his or her part.

I would never say that I'm good at being on dates. I think I like to try to find a connection with somebody, like, that's my main thing. I think that maybe if you find a connection with a girl on a date, that's like the No. 1 thing, and then it's like, 'Cool, that was a great date.'

I'm a selfish person, and I'm going onstage to have a good time, and I'd love if you want to be a part of it. So if people don't get it, they're wrong. I think they're wrong, and I think they either don't want to have a good time or they just don't like my style.

I really hate sitcoms on television with canned laughter and stuff. What really makes me laugh is the real-life stuff. I've got a dry sense of humor.

It's the sense of what family is at the dinner table. It was the joy of knowing mother was in the kitchen making our favorite dish. I wish more people would do this and recall the joy of life.

In Athens I was 17 and I didn't have any expectations. I was just swimming fast and racing everybody. I didn't have the joy after my races in 2007. I didn't want to go to Beijing. I had to for sponsors.

In my mind, the CalMac ferry is linked with the joy of arrival, the sadness of departure, the loss of loved ones brought home by ferry to rest in island soil. It is friendships made and a working life begun.