Quotes by Jenny Eclair

"I am not sure gender ever won't be an issue in comedy, because I think that women do have different priorities in some respects."

"A good fart joke makes me bawl with laughter, so will somebody farting. And the word 'poo.' You can't beat a good poo joke."

"As a five-year-old in Berlin in 1965, I didn't know that funny women existed. It wasn't until I got back to England that I realised women could be funny."

"I can't watch other people doing comedy. As soon as somebody starts being funny I have to turn off because it upsets me. I get comedy indigestion. I just hate anybody else being funny. That's my job."

"Family is the one thing that is definitely not disposable."

"My older sister is bossy, my brother is a stirrer and me - well, I am perfect!"

"I've just got crap hair. Although I inherited a lot of stuff from my dad, including giant knees, I didn't get his good, thick hair. I got my mother's thin, wispy, non-event hair instead."

"As a rule, wearing a bigger pair of jeans looks better than squishing yourself into a pair of jeans that used to fit before you gave up smoking."

"I might be needy, competitive and desperate but it's far better than being wet."

"I think I might actually die of showing off. It'll be on my headstone - 'Cause of Death: Showing Off.'"

"What has happened to the good old-fashioned travel agent? I want to go to a really posh travel agent and have them organise everything for me. I don't want to do things on the Internet."

"I don't do marriage. I think it's incredibly naff. And I don't like vulgar displays of ostentation."

"I have a fear of poverty in old age. I have this vision of myself living in a skip and eating cat food. It's because I'm freelance, and I've never had a proper job. I don't have a pension, and my savings are dwindling. I always thought someone would just come along and look after me."

"After graduating from flares and platforms in the early 1970s, I started drama school wearing a pair of khaki dungarees with one of my Dad's Army shirts, accessorised by a cat's basket doubling as a handbag. Very Lady Gaga."

"I still can't set up the ironing-board. A complete Luddite."

"I am very short-sighted, and if I don't like a situation I take my glasses off."

"I prefer highs and lows to an even keel. Moderation is never something I've been good at."

"I am best viewed from a distance... and at night."

"Well, I'm not good with sliminess. I hate the thought of creatures that have slime on them or creatures that leave a slimy trail. At home, the sight of a slug can bring up my breakfast."

"I was trained as an actress. But I wasn't a very convincing actress, so I started doing punk poetry and then fell into doing stand-up."

"Anyone who has dead straight hair wants curls."

"I'm very jealous of my daughter's education. She's been inspired by her teachers, and nobody inspired me as a teenager."

"The only way to go on holiday is with your expectations at ground level. Convince yourself before you go that the weather's going to be dreadful and there will be nylon sheets. You'll then be pleasantly surprised."

"I can't tan naturally."

"I'm a schizophrenic mix of wannabe glamourpuss and absolute slob, and my style is very much magistrate-meets-barmaid."

"There should be more booing in shops and restaurants and places like that when when the service is bad. If you've had a poor breakfast in a hotel, you should put your knife and fork down and boo."

"I think my siblings sometimes have to defend me within their social circles - they are both barristers."

"I admire the Elsie Tanners and Barbara Windsors of the world: people who have crawled back from the abyss. I'm quite camp in that respect."

"I wouldn't say I was grumpy. It's more pathological - I have seismic tantrums. I get red in the face and cry at least three times a week, and I have to lie down and have a nap afterwards."

"I think as time goes by you'll get female comics who are weirder - you'll get a female Mighty Boosh."

"I'm the least spiritual person in the world. I can't even abide a smelly candle. I know it's meant to make me relax, and that immediately makes my hackles rise."

"I am best viewed from a distance."