Jo brand quotes

You know it's time for a New Year's resolution to lose weight when you step on a talking scale and it says, "One at a time, please.

Wild men are so enormously attractive.

I'm not a flag waver for obesity. It's not healthy, and you have a crap life because there is such a downer on it.

Being Christian towards poor people means trying to improve their lives and give them back some self-respect.

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.

I believe that if your brain has to get to grips with complicated words, then you won't get Alzheimer's. I'm sure it's not true, but I do believe it.

I never think, 'Where am I going to be in a year's time?' That seems to be a sure way of missing the fact that you might be quite happy now.

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.

My doctor told me I should get out of breath three times a week, so I took up smoking.

Everything becomes magnified at night. Sounds travel in a different way, it's dark, and everything seems far more spooky.

We women continue to swallow this line that it's unladylike or even proof of being a lesbian if you wear flat shoes like Doc Martens. I'm prepared to put up with that accusation, because at least my feet aren't killing me and I don't look like a bandy ostrich.

I'm sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people.

I have big friends who won't go swimming because they're too embarrassed about it. I feel that's such a shame, because actually people should be encouraging fat people who are exercising to do it, not pointing and laughing.

I'm not really a churchy person, although I do think Jesus was a good bloke.

When I was a nurse my favourite assignment was the anorexic ward. I sometimes ate as many as seventeen dinners

A good culture in a hospital can absorb and manage a few bad nurses, but once the culture becomes bad in itself, bad nursing practice is much harder to hide.

Occasionally, some sitcoms still stereotype women - the old dragon or the dolly bird - but on the whole we've moved away from that.

British ferries have stopped transporting live animals to the Continent. This has made it very difficult for England fans to get to Away matches.

I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.

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.

I look like Julian Clary on steroids.

I have two brothers and we basically spent our lives playing in the woods, falling in ponds, getting chased by wasps and riding donkeys that we shouldn't have been riding.

Each generation has a backlash against the generation before.

Managers of hospitals, over the years have been increasingly recruited from outside the health service and although their experience of running a supermarket chain might allow them to balance the books, it does not mean they have any insight into how a ward should be managed and patients best served.

People are so different in reality from the picture created of them on TV. So it's all a creation; everything is made up.

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.

Punk allowed women to stop looking feminine. Oh, the relief.

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.

It's very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally.

I thought I was funny as a kid. I used to play tricks on my brothers - I'd tie a two-shilling piece to a bit of cotton, then pull it away as they went to grab it.

By crying on my bed, drinking quite a lot and feeling tempted by drugs. Well, just not reading it to be perfectly honest with you. I know it's a bit of a copout.

I think my comedy, the put-downs I do to hecklers, are the accumulated bitterness of years of people feeling that it's perfectly acceptable to make a comment on your appearance when they don't even know you.

I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn't turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did.

I tend to think the world is a bit of a miserable place, so anyone who can add to people's optimistic, cheerful side is doing a good job, which is what I hope I'm doing.

I like to read my diary occasionally to remind myself what a miserable, alienated old sod I used to be.

As a comic and as a nurse, it's important to look calm on the surface when you're absolutely crapping yourself inside. So, if someone is waving a machete at you, which has happened to me when I was a nurse, it's important to make that person feel that you're in control.

I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways.

I have a utilitarian approach to dressing; as long as I quite like it and it covers me up, I don't care what it is.

I like men. They are hugely entertaining, but they have a lot of shortcomings and you just have to bear those in mind.

I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.

I've no interest in fashion, shoes, handbags, or sweaty shopping.

Inside every fat person there's a thin person looking to get out - They've just eaten them.

Having done a normal job for 10 years, as a psychiatric nurse dealing with emergencies, I know what terrible, hopeless lives some people have. So in many ways, it's great to be able to wield the financial power that I can, and do gigs, fundraisers or give money. I feel lucky I can help out.

I am a hip-hop artist, as you probably know. My hip-hop name is Big Smalls.

I'm a terrible sort of non-fussy eater, really. I don't like posh food very much, and the more ingredients something's got in it, the less I tend to like it.

I like reading, I like boring things, and yet I think people for ages had this image of me that I was on the tube with a chainsaw looking for any likely candidate.

I was really, because I thought it was extremely excruciating when I watched a tape of it, that my husband taped for me and I never watched it again after that.

I've been breastfeeding for two years. I could light the gas ring with my nipples.

Whatever situation you are in, that is what is normal for you.

Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone.

I've never trained as an actor. I've always thought I'm not a good actor. I've been told I'm not a good actor by a lot of people.

Work motivates me. I love what I do and I'm a positive person, I've always liked what I've done as a job - however grim it was.

I often tell audiences at the start of my shows that I'm not gay because I've got petitions from lesbian groups saying 'Can you tell people you're heterosexual because you're giving us a bad name.'

When I was a nurse I never had much money, and I was still happy then.

I like to shock people.

I took my husband to the hospital yesterday to have 17 stitches out - that'll teach him to buy me a sewing kit for my birthday.

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.

Some men are deeply likable but have attitudes I don't like. Does that mean I should completely dismiss them? It's like saying: if someone votes Tory can you like them? And, yes, I can. I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways. We have a tendency to oversimplify things.

I think it's really important to be kind, especially to people whose lives are grim - I try hard to cheer people up in as many ways as I can - if all else fails - I tell 'em a joke!

Men are fantastic - as a concept.

I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people's lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.

Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.

I can honestly say I've never sold any arms to a repressive foreign regime while reassuring everyone at home that the weapons will be used for nice things.

I used to get a lot of people saying 'Oh, you are such a lucky granny.' But the fact of the matter is you can be a grandma at 35 these days.

When I got married, the Sun ran the headline: "Here comes the bride, all fat and wide." Luckily, it was a few days after the wedding - but it was still hideous to read at a great romantic moment.

Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading an article about themselves in the press, knows that on the whole, there is a huge amount of inaccuracy, value judgment and the use of a crowbar to insert editorial bias that reflects the current political leaning of that particular paper.

Even nice things don't make you happy when you're tired.

One thing lots of Christians do have in common is that they can't help coming across as smug. This winds lots of people up, particularly because famous Christians pronounce on the life of the poor from their very lovely affluent homes filled with their very lovely families and attractive pets.

I think there's a danger that we're moving towards a state where the people we are expected to admire are almost not human anymore, and I don't like that. I prefer it when someone looks like a nice person, and you think, 'I could have a laugh with them in the pub.'

I used to do bell ringing in Benenden church. It was really good fun, actually. My best friend's dad was the local vicar, and so it was expected as her best friend that I would go to church every Sunday with her.

I'm just trying to spread the word and upturn the myth that actually you should be resting after cancer treatment. You shouldn't; you should be getting out and doing any kind of exercise you can. You don't have to run a marathon, but you just have to up your activity levels.

I've always been criticised for how filthy my material is. Victoria Wood said to me once, 'I wish I was a bit ruder, like you,' and I said, 'Well, I wish I was a bit cleaner, like you.'

I've never been a fan of euphemism.

If I am totally honest, I would have to say that ''Allo 'Allo!' was not my cup of tea, even though lots of people loved it. For that reason, I find comedy fascinating. There is a huge difference between what people find funny.

I was always being called upon to be an honorary boy alongside my brothers. I don't think I'd be a comic now if it hadn't been for that.

My mum taught me to knit when I was a child, and I turn to it, for some weird reason, when I'm feeling depressed.

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.

I think there's a far more general audience now because I've done more populist stuff on telly.

When you get to know someone, you find there's something nasty in their woodshed.

My mum is bright, ambitious, well read, political and very bolshie: when my dad was conscripted into the Army and posted to Libya, she convinced some general to let her go with him. I don't know how she managed it.

Fat people are brilliant in bed. If I'm sitting on top of you, who's going to argue?

I went on the pill when I was 16, put on four stone... so that proved to be a very effective contraceptive.

I think the key attributes for a good speaker are someone that's articulate and someone that puts a fair amount of humour into what they do.

I do say no to lots of things, actually! I know it doesn't look like it. But I have a tendency to a) be rubbish at saying no, and b) be pushed by some kind of Protestant work ethic.

I think self-esteem is fluid. It's not a fixed state, and so some days are better than others.

I just don't like travelling very much.

My ex-boyfriend can round last night, which was weird because I didn't know he was in a coma.

My mum and my husband are from Irish backgrounds so we have a lot of potatoes. Chips, mashed, boiled, new potatoes, I love them all. Even the slightly wanky ones like Duchess potatoes that go up in a little spiral.

I read that book Fat is a Feminist issue, got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.

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.

I must be an anorexic because an anorexic looks in the mirror and sees a fat person.

I'm a Luddite with computers, and I'm slightly worried about being hacked as well.

Jeremy Clarkson is rather charming, but I can't stomach his public persona. I don't like his casual racism and casual misogyny.

The way to a man's heart is through his hanky pocket with a breadknife.

My mum always felt that women deserved as much as men, and should have as much power, so I suppose I opted to go into a very male-dominated arena to try and prove that.

The funny thing is, I don't actually think of myself as fat at all. I don't think I am. Not really.

There are 10-20 times more male comics than female comics; it's something to do with the social structure of society.

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.

I don't like doing stand-up, because I don't like standing up.

An overweight guy went to the doctor who advised him to try a keep fit DVD. But the guy said he couldn't be bothered. “Well” suggested the doctor, “try something that leaves you a little short of breath.” So the buy took up smoking.

Regular panelists on shows can be terrifying. They own that space, and many guest comics suspect they are favoured in the edit, while their own hilarious jokes end up being ejected into the ether.

A lot of people do that kind of nostalgia stuff believing that they were very happy in their teenage years, but that's probably just an illusion.

I love everything about books. I love the content, the way they look and even the lovely way they smell. I think a book collection says something about you as a person, and certainly my books are something I'd want to pass on for future generations.

I think people tend to believe that women who are successful are probably neglecting their children, possibly a bit hard-nosed and that they don't really support other women very much - that they're men-haters and ball-breakers. I've certainly been on the receiving end of those 'compliments' for most of my career.

There's still this underlying image of women that they should fulfil a certain role. It's no accident that a lot of men who are a bit misogynistic tend to say things like 'get back to the kitchen' or 'why aren't you at home looking after the kids'.

When I was at school you got an overall general education, on many things, even just basic facts.

I think it's difficult, if you're a quite private person like I am, to write about your life very intimately.

I pay a bit more than lip-service to health: I don't eat chips or pre-prepared food, and it might be a comedy sacrilege to admit I do like vegetables, fruit and salad and stuff.

I thought I was funny as a kid.

I cannot abide anyone treating another human being like a piece of dirt, whatever the context.

I don't hold any candle for drama versus comedy.

Having children is fab. They keep me young and make me get up in the morning.

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.

I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.

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?

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.

So, I kind of rather was hoping that people thought it would have a nice mixture of different topics and it also takes in the fact that I've had two children recently.

To me, a politician's job is to listen to constituents' problems and try to sort them out.

People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare.

I buy smoked mackerel in a vain attempt at being healthy. I do actually really like it, and you don't have to cook it, which is handy.

Everyone in comedy thinks if you go to the U.S. you become a global star but, unfortunately, I've always been a bit anti-American - so I never did.

I wouldn't say I was organised at all. I just have to prioritise. Is it more important for them to be organised, or to have their dinner, do you know what I mean?

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.

One thing Christians do have in common is that they can't help coming across as smug.

Does anyone really go into nursing intending to be apathetic, cold and removed from suffering? I find that very difficult to believe.