Top 25 Roisin Conaty Quotes

We weren’t very wealthy, but I had a real working-class guilt about wanting to perform. I felt disdain towards it because of the thought that performers were looking for attention. I did theatre studies for my A levels, but didn’t think a career as a performer was something I could do.

My dad died suddenly. He had a heart attack aged 52. When the hospital phoned to tell me, it felt like when you take your sunglasses off and the light changes. A visual thing happened, which must have been shock or adrenaline. It changed everything.

I like garish things: I like the 1970s and 1960s, and country music – that big-hair look. I don’t go for nudes or beiges. My hair’s naturally black – I bleach it. I don’t go for subtleties.

I like a lot of makeup and I like big blonde hair. Life’s too short for the natural look. Bang it on.

If something’s awful, I find it funny. If something’s funny, I find it funny. It’s my natural, go-to place.

I mean, I’ve got a face for comedy. I say that with love. It does its job.

I’d seen Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers, the stuff off the telly. I don’t think I’d seen anything live before I did a gig, which is weird.

Stand-up is one of the art forms where you don’t have to look nice, and I hope it stays that way.

I grew up on a council estate in Camden and my mum and dad split up when I was about seven.

I always worry what I would have done if I hadn’t found comedy. I think what would I have ended up doing? I’ve worked in a construction firm, fashion company just all things where I wasn’t very good at my job.

Me and Greg Davies once shared a whole jar of pesto, neat, during the Edinburgh festival years ago because we had no food in the flat.

I was a very imaginative child and I told a lot of lies. My sister used to call it my Exaggerator Calculator. I liked telling a story and I knew how to polish it up.

When I was seven in Ireland I went to a barber’s on my own with my pocket money and asked for long hair with spikes on top like Pat Sharp and they gave it to me.

I’m a Londoner, and I feel I can’t live anywhere but London, but I feel more connected to Ireland as a country. I ‘get’ Irish people and the humour here, which is more subtle.

I’m from an Irish family and, even though I grew up in 80s London, I spent a lot of my childhood in southwest Ireland.

And the comic Daniel Kitson, he makes very good pies. I think he made one with feta, it was incredible. King of the pies.

I watch stuff from all around the world. We all grow up watching American TV, so the idea that I might have teenage American girls watching my show is kind of funny!

I’ve never been that girl who has to be in a relationship. My job has given me such a big, full life and, while I know it’s not quite the same as having an intimate relationship, I do have a lot of friends and family.

I think the most bonkers and tiring job I’ve ever had was in my teens where I worked in Woolworths in the Christmas period. That level of tired I’ve never really felt since.

Female standups are like hustlers. We have to be. We fight to get gigs or on to panel shows. We’re made to earn it in a very different way to men.

All my mother’s sisters are matriarchs – there are big characters and opinions.

I think I’ve got an Irish sensibility for language – I like how people talk. I’m not saying I’ve got it, but I’m obsessed with the way they use language, like they use a swear word very poetically.

I like a sleeve on a dress, something pinched in at the waist that shows my figure.

But stand-up is also one of the few art forms where women aren’t judged on their appearance – possibly the only one where people are actually there to listen to what they say on stage.

Passion and kindness are the most attractive qualities. Sense of humour is up there, but kindness becomes more important as you get older. You realise the funny, charming ones aren’t always the best people.