Quotes from Stewart Lee

Nothing is too controversial, but you have to think about how to do it with sensitivity. I don't try to be insensitive. I think really, really carefully about exactly what things mean and how they will affect people.

Personally, I don't have a Twitter account. I like to be in control of the way the stand up of Stewart Lee is perceived, I don't want to have to engage with individual people. Also, when I do look at it, loads of factually inaccurate things about me are written.

In places like Glasgow and Newcastle, audiences have a tradition of being amusingly combative. But they're not trying to ruin the act, they're trying to give you a challenge. It's like a cat playing with a mouse - the cat doesn't want the mouse to die, it wants to keep it alive for its own amusement and to be entertained by its struggle.

You get annoyed about things in real life, and then the tragic thing is that while you are moaning on the awful injustice and suffering of something, something grimly comic will then strike you about it, like a parasite feeding off the misery of the world.

I think what I do is borderline art. Most people who do borderline art have to have other jobs, so I'm very grateful.

If I had grown up in London, I wouldn't have been as keen to become a comedian or a writer. I'd have been able to see a lot of good films and music and comedy. I'd have been distracted. As it was, I had to make it.

I'm very grateful to my adoptive family. My mother sorted my life out.

I'm in this for the long haul, I want to be doing this until I die. I am a standup comedian. I know a lot of people say I'm not, but I am.

I think a comedian has to be low status on some level; that gives you the right to do all sorts of jokes about all sorts of different kinds of people.

I work a lot of things out on stage nowadays rather than writing them in big blocks.

If a gig goes badly, my main worry is, 'Will these people come back?' Because that will affect my ability to pay the mortgage - but nowadays, I don't really mind what happens, as I think if it all goes wrong for real, you still have to go with it.

I'd quite like to write a book about comics, actually. But trying to write about comics as literature, which I don't think anyone's really done before. Sometimes they're more like fan books, and I'd quite like to write one about the Marvel universe over the last 50 years. It's an unprecedented achievement to create that length of continuity.

I don't mind causing offence when I intend to, but I don't like causing it accidentally.

I went to a hypnotist to learn how not to use drinking a pint before you go on as a way of giving you the confidence to just fly at it, irrespective of the fear. That's not a long-term strategy, when you do as many gigs as I do.

Oh, I can't sleep, whatever - it's a huge problem. The comedian's thing is you self-medicate with alcohol and knock yourself out - but obviously, that's not a long-term strategy.

Stand-up is more of an organic process. An imagined dialogue with the audience.

I am not comparing myself to great artists, but when you see conceptual artists at work, on some level it's reassuring to know they can paint figuratively. Likewise, when you listen to the '50s jazz people who do these vast solos, you buy into it more if they open by playing a tune.

For other comics, it's about full-spectrum dominance, being on panel shows and having one-liners and being a good chat show guest and having a good seven minutes you can do on 'Live At The Apollo.' But I really think about these subsequent finished pieces, you know? And they don't always chop up well into one-liners and routines.