I’ve seen a lot of women give up after they’ve had three or four bad gigs in a row. It’s very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally. – Jo Brand
I have such admiration for single mothers. I simply don’t comprehend how you’d cope with that intensity, the lack of breaks, ever, on your own. – Jo Brand
I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough. – Jo Brand
Even when I wasn’t overweight I was never one of those girls or women who wanted to look nice. I always thought it wasn’t important. – Jo Brand
With two small children, I haven’t had a wash since 2001 so the chance to go shopping is way down the list. It is something I do intend to get. – Jo Brand
It is unrealistic to expect an entire profession to be completely good. There are bound to be some individuals who are stressed, who are unkind, who are a bit rubbish at their job, who are in the wrong career. – Jo Brand
I don’t know really, it doesn’t feel like it has changed to me but I think to have to move with the times. Try out different areas and not get stuck in 1978. – Jo Brand
And I also felt that no one in an audience could abuse me worse than the sort of abuse I had had at work as a psychiatric nurse. – Jo Brand
My dad’s a very sensitive man, but as the archetypal rebellious teenager, I didn’t realise that. – Jo Brand
Jeremy Clarkson is rather charming, but I can’t stomach his public persona. I don’t like his casual racism and casual misogyny. – Jo Brand
You don’t really see ugly people that are old, or a bit grotty and smelly, in the media. If a Martian came down, they would think we were all tall, thin, attractive and wealthy. – Jo Brand
There are so many cliches associated with mental health – such as the ‘fine line between lunacy and genius’ – which are, on the whole, a load of rubbish. – Jo Brand
Christians have always been fodder for comedians who have tended to portray them as anoraks – slightly clammy, beatifically smiley dullards with barely a personality between them. – Jo Brand
Most of us manage the fateful things that happen in our lives the best we can, certainly not to a Stalin-like 20-year plan. – Jo Brand
How do you conduct an intimate relationship where no one ever loses it? Where no one ever lashes out, where no one ever smacks anyone in the mouth? – Jo Brand
I have seen good nurses and bad nurses. They existed along a continuum: from hard-working, kind and competent people, to office-hugging, bone-idle types, to apathetic, disengaged automatons. – Jo Brand
So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully – which I didn’t at the beginning. – Jo Brand
There have been some very extreme hecklers in audiences whose bile was so hateful and so meant that it would be a bit frightening to think that all I’m doing is jokes and yet someone hates me that much. – Jo Brand
I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach. – Jo Brand
I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning – though I never really intended it to be – was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly. – Jo Brand
Does anyone really go into nursing intending to be apathetic, cold and removed from suffering? I find that very difficult to believe. – Jo Brand
As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan. – Jo Brand
I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He’s very good in ‘East Enders’ because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself – that’s about all I can do. – Jo Brand
School was great. There were no boys there, which didn’t really bother me at the time because I had two brothers, so I was quite pleased not to spend any more time with boys. – Jo Brand
When you cry, you don’t look very attractive; you look snotty and blotchy. People seem to manage to cry quite prettily these days, and to me, that smacks of not being very genuine. – Jo Brand
They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but for most people, by the time it’s ready to eat, they just don’t fancy it any more. – Jo Brand
With proper acting, I don’t know what I would play – I got sent a script for a play, and it said in the notes that my proposed character was ‘hideously fat and ugly’. That made my day. I mean, I do know I am no oil painting. – Jo Brand