I was actually pretty shy in school. My defense mechanism was to be the class clown. I remember getting into a lot of trouble for being disruptive, and I was brought in front of the headteacher, who said: 'What's going to happen to you; what are you going to do when you grow up?' and I said: 'Well, I'm obviously going to be a comedian.'
A big part of becoming a funny person was a major defense mechanism. Onstage, especially as a woman, I've had to be really tough. The second you show a crack, the audience can literally leave.
I laugh when I see people in pain. Sometimes I think it is a defense mechanism from childhood, where you're in so much pain you have to laugh. It is a survival mechanism.
Does any woman really just come in and say, 'I'm a plus-size woman?' Maybe as a defense mechanism or maybe as a way to kind of cope with fitting into society but... I just think it's divisive.
People use irony as a defense mechanism.
I wish I trusted people more. But when I meet someone, the first thing is, 'What does this person want?' And I put up a defense mechanism. But I've always been that way.
I was just a ham since about the age of five. If I was performing at Medieval Times or something, I'd be the court jester. That was always my defense mechanism. I was never all that funny; I was just obnoxious and loud.
To understand the fanatic rejection of women's liberation in the Muslim world, one has to take into account the time factor. Most of us educated women have illiterate mothers. The conservative wave against women in the Muslim world is a defense mechanism against profound changes in both sex roles and the touchy subject of sexual identity.
Without comedy as a defense mechanism I wouldn't be able to survive.
Food is sort of like the Jewish sense of humor, a defense mechanism. It is one of the things that helped the Jews survive through 2,000 years of an often very harsh Diaspora.
