Quotes from Greg Davies

When I've mentioned my screen wife is Helen Baxendale, so many people have burst out laughing. My self-esteem has been crushed by it.

The truth is, I should have never done teaching. I did teaching because I didn't have the bottle to have a go at comedy. Whether there's any gain to comedy is not for me to say. But certainly it was no loss to teaching.

My dad is the funniest human being I've ever met in my life - for years, I'd watch him hold court in whatever situation he was in; he was the most amazing raconteur. I often feel I've hijacked what should have been his career.

Being a teacher was great, but it wasn't what I wanted to do, so it was ultimately crushing.

One of my friend calls me 'lost to showbiz', but that's only because I don't go for a drink as often as he'd like, because I'm always working. I've met very few famous people who are lost to showbiz - I have met some, mind.

I think the main thing I'd bring to Chewbacca is middle-aged spread. Chewbacca has looked after himself.

I tend to develop my rambling anecdotes by actually getting up and performing them. That's the joy/horror of stand up - if you have the germ of an idea that you think might be funny, there is a way of finding out if it's funny very quickly.

I am often driven by necessity, rather than actually doing things like an adult.

I've politely declined a few reality-type things but generally have been asked to do things that I'd enjoy. I'll be doing less in the new year so I can get some writing done.

I am not a father, and the only children that I get close to are my nieces.

I've never disguised the fact that I wasn't happy in teaching. But the reason was that I wanted to do comedy. I would have been a very unhappy security guard or a very unhappy greengrocer.

I often run teaching down in my standup, but I had some great years, and it's a great job. It represented a place where I knew what I wanted to do but didn't have the courage.

In standup, the feedback is instantaneous, and if it fails, you know you'll be off-stage and hiding in a short time.

As soon as I get the chance, I'll be back spouting nonsense on the microphone.

I have no system of writing. It's chaos. I could be upside down on my bedroom floor; I'll be scribbling on a pad that I'll then lose. I'll be on the toilet with my laptop on, sitting in the pub with my iPad.

I once bought some enormous fireworks that were literally the size of sticks of dynamite. We would go into the field behind our house, slide them into the biggest cow pats we could find, and blow them sky high. It was exhilarating and, for the cows, incredibly confusing.

I love what I'm doing and will continue to do it, and there's nothing you can do to stop me.

It's a strange thing when someone passes away. It's always when you're not expecting it that you're affected by it. When we first started filming, we were filming with existing characters in a location that we'd never been before.

It often occurs to me that this is a strange way to make a living. But it's wonderful, too. There are many ways to read maturity, and I'm not fighting the instinct to simply enjoy that kind of nonsense. I love that someone would pay me to draw on somebody else's bottom.

People often tell me that they have no idea how I can do standup. The idea of trying to make a large group of strangers laugh is, for many, absolutely petrifying - and it is - but there are ways of gradually developing the material that can ease the fear.

The only difference between a comedian and someone else? We need to make people laugh more.

Love at first sight is probably for stupid people, but maybe I'm just cynical.

As anyone who's done any acting will tell you, if you haven't got a malicious evil streak, it's such a joy to let one out.

I was scarred in 1977 by watching Jaws, and I've never got over it.