Top 100 Jo Brand Quotes
#1. People can forgive each other.
Jo Brand
#2. Again, with two small children it's incredibly hard to commit yourself to anything because you're just getting interested in it and someone comes along and goes I want Thomas The Tank Engine on, and screams the place down until you put it on.
Jo Brand
#3. I'm too nervous to eat before I go onstage, and I'll usually eat out after the performance or when I get home at midnight.
Jo Brand
#4. I used to get nervous about three weeks before a gig ... now I've managed to condense it down to a manageable ten minutes.
Jo Brand
#5. I don't know really, it doesn't feel like it has changed to me but I think to have to move with the times. Try out different areas and not get stuck in 1978.
Jo Brand
#6. Everyone in comedy thinks if you go to the U.S. you become a global star but, unfortunately, I've always been a bit anti-American - so I never did.
Jo Brand
#7. The thing I thought about doing it was it's Comic Relief and you've got to be funny. So although I did try to sing properly it obviously has hilarious results when you can't sing.
Jo Brand
#8. I read that book 'Fat is a Feminist Issue', got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it.
Jo Brand
#9. There's a general sense that women are more relaxed and less defensive in comedy than they used to be. I think it's easier than it was but underlying it all there is still a pretty sexist view of women on stage, which to me hasn't changed that much.
Jo Brand
#10. They say revenge is a dish best eaten cold, but for most people, by the time it's ready to eat, they just don't fancy it any more.
Jo Brand
#11. And I also felt that no one in an audience could abuse me worse than the sort of abuse I had had at work as a psychiatric nurse.
Jo Brand
#12. Who do I like? I am a big fan of French and Saunders - not that that they are particularly stand-up I have to say, but I think they have been great for women and they are of themselves just incredibly funny whether they are male or female.
Jo Brand
#13. My mum and my husband are from Irish backgrounds, so we have a lot of potatoes. Chips, mashed, boiled, new potatoes, I love them all. Even the slightly wonky ones like Duchess potatoes that go up in a little spiral.
Jo Brand
#14. I have two brothers and we basically spent our lives playing in the woods, falling in ponds, getting chased by wasps and riding donkeys that we shouldn't have been riding.
Jo Brand
#15. Suffice to say, many women find their first appearance on a comedy panel show to be their last. Second chances seem to be given less often to the female of the species.
Jo Brand
#16. The comedian sticks as religiously to her theme as a dancer sticks to a diet.
Jo Brand
#17. My personal opinion is that you can't be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them, but being prejudiced isn't an illegal act, whereas being racist can be.
Jo Brand
#18. I do say no to lots of things, actually! I know it doesn't look like it. But I have a tendency to a) be rubbish at saying no, and b) be pushed by some kind of Protestant work ethic.
Jo Brand
#19. I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.
Jo Brand
#20. I love doing stand-up. It's so self-contained - you go there, you do it, you go home - but with telly, there are too many people involved with it with opinions. You have a product, and everyone wants to change it.
Jo Brand
#21. Men are fantastic - as a concept.
Jo Brand
#22. You don't really see ugly people that are old, or a bit grotty and smelly, in the media. If a Martian came down, they would think we were all tall, thin, attractive and wealthy.
Jo Brand
#23. I've never, ever had people being aggressive to me in public or abusing me, and actually quite a lot of men do say to me, 'You're quite good' - though they can't bear to go, 'You're great.'
Jo Brand
#24. I wasn't one of those hideous children who make their parents sit through hour-long performances when you're seven. I didn't do anything like that thankfully.
Jo Brand
#25. I've been breastfeeding for two years. I could light the gas ring with my nipples.
Jo Brand
#26. How do you conduct an intimate relationship where no one ever loses it? Where no one ever lashes out, where no one ever smacks anyone in the mouth?
Jo Brand
#27. I did try when I wasn't doing the singing to do as much comedy as I could because I thought with Comic Relief you are duty bound to anyway.
Jo Brand
#28. There are lots of people who believe that caricature of me the tabloids created, so they think they don't like me.
Jo Brand
#29. What they did was to make a pilot and it may well go to series at the next festival but I don't have any news on that. It's already been on Paramount actually, but as it's on Paramount it'll probably be on several more times ... hopefully.
Jo Brand
#30. I still get blokes who say, 'Oh you hate men, don't you?' And I say, 'No, I just hate you.' I really love doing that, just to see the look on their faces.
Jo Brand
#31. I wouldn't say I was organised at all. I just have to prioritise. Is it more important for them to be organised, or to have their dinner, do you know what I mean?
Jo Brand
#32. Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.
Jo Brand
#33. School was great. There were no boys there, which didn't really bother me at the time because I had two brothers, so I was quite pleased not to spend any more time with boys.
Jo Brand
#34. Not many women will go out on a limb to make themselves really unattractive and unfeminine so you can get the laughs, but it's a great thing to do in my book.
Jo Brand
#35. Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone.
Jo Brand
#36. I'm a Luddite with computers, and I'm slightly worried about being hacked as well.
Jo Brand
#37. I've always been criticised for how filthy my material is. Victoria Wood said to me once, 'I wish I was a bit ruder, like you,' and I said, 'Well, I wish I was a bit cleaner, like you.'
Jo Brand
#38. I made a supreme effort not to do that thing that parents do, which is to bore people without children to death by going on and on about how funny their children are, so there's none of that hopefully.
Jo Brand
#39. I went on the pill when I was 16, put on four stone ... so that proved to be a very effective contraceptive.
Jo Brand
#40. If I am totally honest, I would have to say that 'Allo 'Allo!' was not my cup of tea, even though lots of people loved it. For that reason, I find comedy fascinating. There is a huge difference between what people find funny.
Jo Brand
#41. Everything becomes magnified at night. Sounds travel in a different way, it's dark, and everything seems far more spooky.
Jo Brand
#42. I think it's really important to be kind, especially to people whose lives are grim - I try hard to cheer people up in as many ways as I can - if all else fails - I tell 'em a joke!
Jo Brand
#43. I must be an anorexic because an anorexic looks in the mirror and sees a fat person.
Jo Brand
#44. So, my style has hopefully changed over the years and it is more relaxed, and I do tend to smile and have more than one expression these days hopefully - which I didn't at the beginning.
Jo Brand
#45. I've never trained as an actor. I've always thought I'm not a good actor. I've been told I'm not a good actor by a lot of people.
Jo Brand
#46. I never ever take into consideration the consequences of my actions until it's too late.
Jo Brand
#47. When you cry, you don't look very attractive; you look snotty and blotchy. People seem to manage to cry quite prettily these days, and to me, that smacks of not being very genuine.
Jo Brand
#48. When I was a nurse my favourite assignment was the anorexic ward. I sometimes ate as many as seventeen dinners
Jo Brand
#49. I am a hip-hop artist, as you probably know. My hip-hop name is Big Smalls.
Jo Brand
#50. It is unrealistic to expect an entire profession to be completely good. There are bound to be some individuals who are stressed, who are unkind, who are a bit rubbish at their job, who are in the wrong career.
Jo Brand
#51. Regular panelists on shows can be terrifying. They own that space, and many guest comics suspect they are favoured in the edit, while their own hilarious jokes end up being ejected into the ether.
Jo Brand
#52. People are so different in reality from the picture created of them on TV. So it's all a creation; everything is made up.
Jo Brand
#53. If you want to get a pet for your child, I suggest a chicken so that when they get bored of it after a couple of days at least you can have a nice roast dinner.
Jo Brand
#54. Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading an article about themselves in the press knows that, on the whole, there is a huge amount of inaccuracy, value judgment and the use of a crowbar to insert editorial bias that reflects the current political leaning of that particular paper.
Jo Brand
#55. I'm just trying to spread the word and upturn the myth that actually you should be resting after cancer treatment. You shouldn't; you should be getting out and doing any kind of exercise you can. You don't have to run a marathon, but you just have to up your activity levels.
Jo Brand
#57. I never think, 'Where am I going to be in a year's time?' That seems to be a sure way of missing the fact that you might be quite happy now.
Jo Brand
#58. A good culture in a hospital can absorb and manage a few bad nurses, but once the culture becomes bad in itself, bad nursing practice is much harder to hide.
Jo Brand
#59. I believe that if your brain has to get to grips with complicated words, then you won't get Alzheimer's. I'm sure it's not true, but I do believe it.
Jo Brand
#60. I've never been a fan of euphemism.
Jo Brand
#61. I don't hold any candle for drama versus comedy.
Jo Brand
#62. No one I know is actually so rude as to tell me I've become duller since having children. But I'm sure they think it.
Jo Brand
#63. We women continue to swallow this line that it's unladylike or even proof of being a lesbian if you wear flat shoes like Doc Martens. I'm prepared to put up with that accusation, because at least my feet aren't killing me and I don't look like a bandy ostrich.
Jo Brand
#64. I have big friends who won't go swimming because they're too embarrassed about it. I feel that's such a shame, because actually people should be encouraging fat people who are exercising to do it, not pointing and laughing.
Jo Brand
#65. Punk allowed women to stop looking feminine. Oh, the relief.
Jo Brand
#66. You know it's time for a New Year's resolution to lose weight when you step on a talking scale and it says, One at a time, please.
Jo Brand
#67. I remember when Victoria Wood started to come through, and I thought she was great, though she and I are very different in our approach.
Jo Brand
#68. My preference is swimming in the sea. I find the sea is more liberating, wild and good fun rather than plodding up and down a pool.
Jo Brand
#69. I like men. They are hugely entertaining, but they have a lot of shortcomings and you just have to bear those in mind.
Jo Brand
#70. God, what a depressing day that was and what an irony that Britain's first female prime minister had to be Margaret Thatcher. She was the woman who asked, 'What has feminism ever done for me?' Well, dear, if you need to ask that question then you're obviously not very bright
Jo Brand
#71. Being Christian towards poor people means trying to improve their lives and give them back some self-respect.
Jo Brand
#72. I look like Julian Clary on steroids.
Jo Brand
#73. I was really, because I thought it was extremely excruciating when I watched a tape of it, that my husband taped for me and I never watched it again after that.
Jo Brand
#74. In the end, punk inevitably burned itself out and acted as a bridge across which the New Romantics could sashay in their chiffon and glossy hair.
Jo Brand
#75. As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan.
Jo Brand
#76. When I was a nurse I never had much money, and I was still happy then.
Jo Brand
#77. Each generation has a backlash against the generation before.
Jo Brand
#78. As a comic and as a nurse, it's important to look calm on the surface when you're absolutely crapping yourself inside. So, if someone is waving a machete at you, which has happened to me when I was a nurse, it's important to make that person feel that you're in control.
Jo Brand
#79. Most of us manage the fateful things that happen in our lives the best we can, certainly not to a Stalin-like 20-year plan.
Jo Brand
#80. There are problems with nursing - such as the issue of nurses all having to do degrees these days. But that doesn't mean to say the entire infrastructure of nursing is falling about and that it is populated by unfeeling psychopaths, which is, frankly, the implication sometimes.
Jo Brand
#81. I don't like doing stand-up, because I don't like standing up.
Jo Brand
#82. My ex-boyfriend can round last night, which was weird because I didn't know he was in a coma.
Jo Brand
#83. Let's face it: I am not a professional runner.
Jo Brand
#84. By crying on my bed, drinking quite a lot and feeling tempted by drugs. Well, just not reading it to be perfectly honest with you. I know it's a bit of a copout.
Jo Brand
#85. One thing lots of Christians do have in common is that they can't help coming across as smug. This winds lots of people up, particularly because famous Christians pronounce on the life of the poor from their very lovely affluent homes filled with their very lovely families and attractive pets.
Jo Brand
#86. I suspect most politicians feel overwhelmed because people's lives are a real struggle, full of unhappiness, and you would probably feel powerless to do anything about it.
Jo Brand
#87. I thought I was funny as a kid. I used to play tricks on my brothers - I'd tie a two-shilling piece to a bit of cotton, then pull it away as they went to grab it.
Jo Brand
#88. My mum always felt that women deserved as much as men, and should have as much power, so I suppose I opted to go into a very male-dominated arena to try and prove that.
Jo Brand
#89. I like the purity of stand-up because it is all about whether people laugh at your jokes. Either they laugh or they don't.
Jo Brand
#90. Jeremy Clarkson is rather charming, but I can't stomach his public persona. I don't like his casual racism and casual misogyny.
Jo Brand
#91. I often tell audiences at the start of my shows that I'm not gay because I've got petitions from lesbian groups saying 'Can you tell people you're heterosexual because you're giving us a bad name.'
Jo Brand
#92. A lot of people do that kind of nostalgia stuff believing that they were very happy in their teenage years, but that's probably just an illusion.
Jo Brand
#93. I think there's a far more general audience now because I've done more populist stuff on telly.
Jo Brand
#94. Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.
Jo Brand
#95. It's inevitable that if you do okay on something like that you don't just annoy people, that it will make a difference because it seemed like such a lot of people so, yes I would have to say that it has done.
Jo Brand
#96. An overweight guy went to the doctor who advised him to try a keep fit DVD. But the guy said he couldn't be bothered. "Well" suggested the doctor, "try something that leaves you a little short of breath." So the buy took up smoking.
Jo Brand
#97. I pay a bit more than lip-service to health: I don't eat chips or pre-prepared food, and it might be a comedy sacrilege to admit I do like vegetables, fruit and salad and stuff.
Jo Brand
#98. My mum is bright, ambitious, well read, political and very bolshie: when my dad was conscripted into the Army and posted to Libya, she convinced some general to let her go with him. I don't know how she managed it.
Jo Brand
#99. I like reading, I like boring things, and yet I think people for ages had this image of me that I was on the tube with a chainsaw looking for any likely candidate.
Jo Brand
#100. I thought I was funny as a kid.
Jo Brand
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