Other than the laws of physics, rules have never really worked out for me.
When I went out on tour as Bing Hitler I would hook up with Lenny and we'd get drunk together. He was always very supportive. He was a big star and a lot of what he said to me had power and impact. Apart from that, I just like him.
I realized women and humor were linked very closely.
I think I'm just someone that just tries to get by. I'm kind of - if it was during the Second World War, I'd be a black marketeer, I think.
I got sober. I stopped killing myself with alcohol. I began to think: 'Wait a minute - if I can stop doing this, what are the possibilities?' And slowly it dawned on me that it was maybe worth the risk.
The idea of having Australians upset at me is just awful.
I used to believe, like many people who come from poor backgrounds, that it gave me an edge, but I think that's just something we have to tell ourselves to get by sometimes. I don't believe that anymore. Children of privilege can be just as talented and clever as anybody else.
The truth is, you win the Lotto. That's really how you have to approach it. You're a lottery winner when you get a sitcom and it goes.
When I stopped drinking, it was only because I thought if I don't stop, I'm going to die.
I don't know now if I'm funny. I just keep talking and hope that I hit something that's funny.
I think that clearly it has an influence, to be coming of age during the punk rock era, to come from a difficult and sporadically violent background, to have been in and out of such chaos, I think it actually helps. But I don't know for sure.
I'm not aware of having a creepy laugh, but apparently I do.
I dropped out of high school when I was 16, after I had a huge argument with my English teacher over the meaning of the word 'existentialism.'
It's the beauty and curse of doing a daily show. Some days you've got nothing to talk about and other days Dick Cheney shoots his lawyer in the face and everyone is happy.
If we are now holding late-night talk-show hosts to the same moral accountability as we hold politicians or clergymen, I'm out. I'm gone.
I said that the only way I could have a band that would work in the format of my show is if the band were crap. So if I have a band they'd have to really suck.
The wedding took place in Vermont, where they have legalized gay civil unions, and I married a woman.
I aim to please. I'm nothing if not a vaudevillian.
I've started looking at my own father a bit funny. He assures me, though, that I really am the son of a Scottish postman.
Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.
