Quotes from Dominic Holland

Many years ago, I was a young and, dare I say it, very hot new comedian. Maybe even the hottest of all if the now defunct Perrier panel of judges were to be believed.

Edinburgh is a world city, visited throughout the year for its beauty and history, but in August, it is the City of Hope. There is something very exciting and romantic about performers of all shapes and sizes, honing their stuff for the biggest arts festival in the world.

I find it pressurising coming to the Voodoo Rooms to do my hour of comedy.

All kids should vote - it gives them the opportunity to whinge afterwards because you can't complain if you haven't voted.

In my career, all my most important breaks have come from Edinburgh. Winning awards, being reviewed, bagging my BBCR4 series and the chance to tour has all come from Edinburgh, which begs the question, why the hell have I left it so long to come back?

I'm a confident person next to the guy in the street, but if you go into the showbiz world, it seems the guys who are most successful are the most confident, and I don't think I fit into that category.

Where I live in south London, it is a very Tory area, so a Labour vote is a wasted vote. My leanings would certainly be not to vote Tory.

I always think stand-up is the most brutal environment for a comedian.

I even like the Scottish weather because, like everywhere in the U.K., you can't have great beauty without lots of rain.

It is the natural order of things that successive generations will achieve more than their predecessors.

When I phoned up and said, 'Mum, I'm doing a 52-date national tour with Eddie Izzard,' she said 'That's nice, dear. How are you?'

For comics, Edinburgh makes no financial or medical sense. Get an audience; that's the first task. Once the punters are in, simply make them laugh for an hour, and then sweat on the critics.

I might get a break again, and I might get back on telly. If I don't, I'll just keep doing stand-up and doing the best gigs I can.

My Fiat Multipla is bright green - it looks like a frog. I look like a monkey, so between the two of us, we are a hideous prospect. It's the ugliest car on the road but the most practical, and I would live and die by it.

I got heckled by a woman, and my riposte fixed upon her unfortunate hair texture, only for her to remove her wig and reveal to the room the horrors of chemotherapy.

Doing stand-up is not normal. People fear public speaking above all other things, and I am no different.

The garden is something I always try to get into, but it always beats me.

I am a professional comedian, a published novelist, and a general wit for hire.

I just talk about the funny things in my life, and the idea is that my observations reflect the lives of my audience - so people are really laughing at themselves. This is the theory, anyway, and I am aware that in print, that it doesn't appear to be very funny. But it is, and I am definitely funny.

I like to call myself numerically dyslexic, but officially, I am mathematically thick.

Growing up, I was always enthralled by Ronnie Barker. He made my dad howl with laughter, which always intrigued me, and he had the rare gift of being as good a performer as he was a writer.

As a parent, I often wonder what I should be encouraging my kids to do for a career.

It's because finance is so baffling that makes being an economist such a safe option. It nestles down comfortably with psychiatry and astrology as a profession where getting it patently wrong is just not a problem - and also, rather wonderfully, seems to have no adverse affect on their professional standing whatsoever.

The house I've bought in London, the holidays, everything has been bought from making people laugh, and if you'd said to me when I was 14 that's how I was going to make my living, I would have smiled from ear to ear.