SARA PASCOE

Growing older has helped me become empathetic to other people and their reasons for making choices. I used to think there was a definitive right and wrong and that only I knew what they were and so I should be dictator of the world.

We don't live in a world where, if you commit a crime, your life's over. We as a society believe in rehabilitation. We believe in second and third chances.

There was a girl I was best friends with at college; I always used to kiss the boys she liked. I'd like to apologise to her.

When I started watching comedy there was a lot of negativity about women; a lot of comics were spewing out aggressive, violent and negative material.

I wanted the audience to write stories and then read them out if they wanted to. It's always the best part of the show because people are so imaginative.

When I was a small child we were allowed to wait up until midnight on 31 December. Then as the TV chimed, Dad would run to the front door and open it, welcoming the New Year air. This is the kind of entertainment you make in poor families, and cry to your therapist about when you're rich.

My earliest food memory is being starving hungry after swimming. I think that's quite common with children: the second you're out of the water you want to have a Twix, a cup of tea and chips and salty stuff.

As an adult, my hero is my dog, Mouse. He is so friendly to everyone he meets. He wags his tail and loves everyone, like Jesus!

If you view history as a backdrop, set-dressing or fiction, then 'Pride and Prejudice' is hugely entertaining. My reread saw the misery of the female characters' reality. My new reaction was sadness and fury. Knowledge ruins everything!

The Apollo seats 3,600 people: I could hear them making a huge noise for Milton Jones and Lee Mack. If the audience doesn't make the same amount of noise for you, you feel like you've failed.

I get a fizzy thing in my brain, like a nice glass of wine, and I want to know facts and I want to understand.

Even quicker than the development of super-technology is the human adaptation to taking it for granted. We live in a world where regular people converse publicly with an inanimate object and escape Bedlam or a dunking.

We parcel up time into years and months and days because without compartmentalisation the tundra of time is impossible to navigate.

I became a vegetarian at seven. I went on a school trip to a farm and loved the animals.

I didn't watch TV in the 90s and early 00s. I was too busy trying to grow out a fringe and perm.

When I was 14, I auditioned for Michael Barrymore's 'My Kind Of People'.

Sometimes people give to charity because they have been persuaded to believe in a cause, sometimes just to get rid of you and sometimes because they are befuddled and confused.

Standup is a place where, as long as it's funny enough, you can say your most embarrassing things, shameful things and disappointing things.

I really respect the work and speeches of Tony Benn. He was a powerful speaker with a huge heart.

Extensive analysis was conducted before deciding whether consumers would respond better to a male or female imprisoned in their phone. Almost every country in the world had a female Siri programmed - but not, initially, in the UK and France.

I could barely function as an adult; I slept through alarm clocks and lost train tickets mid-journey.

There's nothing you can't tell to an audience, because they're all people who've had lives. The only thing they don't want to watch is someone who's really angry or out of control.'

When you're the person in the room with the microphone, you have a platform to talk about whatever you want, and it's much more interesting if we're discussing something that feels relevant.

Worse than useless, I worry e-petitions are detrimental, with their sense of catharsis and mini-activism. Channelling away agitation, giving us the opportunity to show all our Facebook friends just exactly how great we are at being compassionate.

I started comedy as a hobby, really, and it still doesn't seem like a proper job.