Quotes from Sean Lock

I finished school in 1981 when there was a recession on so there was not a lot of money around or work. I worked on building sites during that time and there were many people on the dole or always looking for work.

I just did loads of dead-end jobs and a lot of travelling - just farting around, really. I had quite a lot of fun, but I've got no qualifications, no skills.

It's hard to pinpoint highlights on tour because they're the gigs really. The whole day becomes about the show. From the time you wake up you are slowly building up to that.

I go to my office nearly every day, and I'll sit there for six or seven hours and come up with ideas, and that's the only way I can justify turning up on stage.

Salad cream is horrible, like albino ketchup.

I think people like to have something to have a moan about.

People ask me about my influences and I say all the comedians in the 1970s and Dave Allen was a massive influence and a very big influence on a lot of modern comics.

There's someone on Twitter who pretends to be me but as long as he doesn't say anything damaging, I don't care. Let him get on with it.

There are certain types of stand-up, who are very successful, who do one type of joke, and never stray out of that. The audience knows that he's the depressive comedian, he's the up-beat, crazy comic. He's the one that talks about real life.

Brown is definitely my colour. I like it's understated drabness.

I have no problem with people coming up to me and telling me they enjoy my work, what's weird is when you sense people noticing you, nudging each other, and you're not anonymous any more. You just feel exposed.

As a comedian, you're making so many observations, so many measurements. You might catch someone's eyes as you're telling a joke, and they can have this sort of glazed expression on their face, and that can set all your dials off.

A real man doesn't know what cellulite is. Until I was 30 I thought cellulite was a building material used for restoring plasterwork in stately homes.

Here's a message to all the employers out there reading this: if a comedian comes to you having given up comedy and wants a job; don't employ them. They're utterly feckless and incapable of handling any kind of responsibility. Fact.

That's the thing about comedy, there's something utterly delightful and slightly pure about a really good joke, and to create one is a great pleasure.

I'm actually a miserable, authoritarian guy at home... no really, I'm strict.

Being a purple van man means I have my own perspective on things.

I drive a VW California. It's a camper van based on the transporter body. It drives like a car, but you press a button and you're camping. I take it on tour with me.

I don't think it's any secret that the bigger the venue, the subtlety and artfulness of comedy declines.

There is this fallacy of the 'cool' comedian out there. You see the guys who take themselves very seriously and think they're being very suave and sardonic. But they're just jesters like the rest of us; they're just goons like we all are. The job is to make people laugh.

I prefer audiences away from London because they're more appreciative.

I'm amazed by how angry people get about new art, particularly new sculptures in their town. The people who hate new sculpture usually find their type of art on birthday cards, pictures of a vintage car going round a hairpin bend and suchlike.