SCOTT THOMPSON

Fathers should start teaching the boys how to punch.

My feeling with my characters is that they all have a right to feel exactly the way that they do, so I never censor them. I don't judge them.

I think Canadian humor is a little less broad than American humor.

Comedy is actually very macho driven.

I guess chemistry is just another word for love.

I'm a total nerd. I love fantasy.

People don't listen when you lecture. No one wants to be talked down to or scolded.

I think the Canadian sense of humor is dryer than America's and juicier than Britain's. I think it's a cross between the two of them, really.

Writing is a difficult thing.

When I found out I had cancer, I just said one thing: 'I want to hold on to life' and that changed everything for me.

Canadian comedians are generally more well-rounded... They have to do a lot more. In order to have a career in this country, you have to do everything. And in the States you can narrow-cast, you can be just a sitcom performer or a stand-up comedian or a sketch performer.

I've pretty much given up on the orange. I really have. I just don't even bother. It's just either sour, or woody, or the skin's too thick. It's very nice when you come across the perfect orange, because it's really a beautiful experience. But the stakes are too high.

I do love jokes.

When you are not treated seriously, you develop comically. Its sense of oneself is so fractured and fragile that it's like the picked-on kid who has to become funny.

I think a case could be made that there's sort of a crisis of masculinity in the West. Particularly with white males.

You know what worries me? Interacting with the kids. I'm afraid that's when my Tourette's will kick in.

In Canadian comedy, you'll almost never see guns. If you bring a gun into a scene, it's like, 'Whoa! Wow, how are we going to deal with that!' Guns in an American comedy are a given. Violence in America is used in a much more cavalier way.

I'm not really cool, or dashing, or any of those things.

A lot of gay men are in delusion if they think they're super macho.

Art is about the edges and the sharp corners and those places are not conducive to activism, which is about putting on a gloss.

I wanted to be a male ballet dancer.

I believe the things that happened to me as a child scarred me terribly, and I wish somebody would have helped me with some of the things that happened.

My theory is that comedy comes from little people.

When I was younger I wanted to be a big movie star who'd get to be funny on talk shows and then I wanted to retire and write science fiction.

Activism isn't about holding your faults up to the light. That's what comedy is about, it's about saying, 'Look at this person who is so flawed and frail and damaged. And we're all this frail and damaged so let's laugh at it.'