My parents are super westernized. My mom listens to western music, my dad was like a pub landlord so he properly embraced English life. But the truth is they both came from tiny villages in Sri Lanka.

People who are comfortable in their own skin I admire, but you don't know what's really going on. If you meet someone who says they nail being a human, they are as far away from nailing it as a human as you can possibly imagine.

What I'm like with lack of sleep is that I let the devil in, so if I'm tired the slightest thing will put me into a bad place.

The experience of watching other standups is either: 1) you see your mate doing standup and it's really bad and you're heartbroken, or 2) You see your mate doing really well and it's heartbreaking.

I've done bits where I've perhaps talked about my kids annoying me and you hope that the audience realise that you do actually love your children. You can still be a good parent and be frustrated by your kids.

People say that I'm quite grumpy and negative on stage and that I surely can't be like that off it, but I really am.

I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn't like them.

I have long been guilty of dressing too young for my age.

I was terrible at sport at school. I was fat, which made things slightly tougher, but it also meant that people were encouraging to the point of patronising.

My childhood memories are filled with hugs and kisses from both my mum and dad. My mum has a thing about kissing you an odd number of times: if she kisses you once, all good, but if she kisses you twice, then you know another one has to follow and, weirdly, she tends to go for the forehead.

My garage/office is strewn with Post-its, cards, folders, notebooks, yoga mats and multicoloured pens, all purchased in a quest to unlock a magic way of working that will ensure my ascension to next-level creativity.

I have read that, when you are writing or working on something creative, and your attention wanders, your brain is processing and working on what you have just done. But I find it hard to believe that my brain is really taking five hours to fully process the seven minutes I have managed to spend focused on one thing.

When my wife and I promised the rest of our lives to each other, I doubt either of us suspected that life would involve quite so much TV.

I thoroughly enjoy my children's birthdays, despite the fact their parties are an apocalyptic mix of hall-booking, Nerf-gun-hiring, refreshment-organising and talking to parents whose names you've forgotten.

When you spend your day writing comedy, particularly with others, the discussion of jokes and how far to push things with a group of unoffendable colleagues means that your grasp of what is acceptable in normal conversation is often skewed.

I would not have succeeded as a comedian had I not had some hugely lucky breaks.

I owe much of my success to Seann Walsh. He kept recommending me for Live At The Apollo until eventually the producers offered me a gig.

I have long believed that success stories need a bit of balance. We only hear from people who risked it all, and found it paid off.

Being away a lot on tour means that my family has to suffer an inordinate amount of overcompensation, as I return home with skewed ideas of what counts as quality time. I will force everyone into a cinema trip, insistent that three hours in the dark in silence is the perfect way for us all to re-engage.

My life consists of intense focus on urgent areas of development, and then abandonment of that focus shortly afterwards.

Trying to be funny is arguably the least funny thing you can do.

We've all seen comedians look like they're reaching just a little bit too much for the laugh. This is counterproductive. The conceit of standup is that it is effortless, which makes the prospect of generating new comedy a tricky one: you are trying to be funny without looking like you are trying to be funny.

Some of the best comedy comes from squeezing humour from tragedy and struggle, but the main pursuit of comedy should be laughter.

Trumpeting diversity undermines what you are trying to achieve in the first place. It should happen without fanfare.

Black Panther is a great film'. It has the most compelling villain of any Marvel movie, and it deals admirably with the issue of diminishing jeopardy in a million superhero films where the world is going to end.

Everyone seems so excited by the fact that music is more accessible, people can find new artists more easily and it's cheaper, without focusing on the potential negatives, not least of which is that idiots can more easily listen to your favourite music.

Consuming art should involve investment and risk.

My problem is that we are all listening to music in a more disposable fashion.

I am not obliged to tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs, nor am I qualified to do so.

Veganism is a point of contention all year round. So much so that many vegans cut themselves off from the rest of society, huddling together for warmth and smugness, and using online forums to vent their disgust at the morally corrupt dairy- and meat-eating savages who make up most of the populace.

It's much easier for the vegan to remain at home and do their own Christmas dinner. That way, you can enjoy your food without someone making some hilarious comment about your stuffed pepper.

The error that many vegans make is forgetting that our food has novelty value. Non-vegans think our food is awful, but are fascinated by the prospect of something vegan being delicious. They want to disprove it.

Sri Lanka's interpretation of western cuisine is pretty diabolical. Sri Lankan food itself is ace, however, and they bloody love a buffet. Even if you go to a basic-looking cafe, they can knock up four or five different curries for you very quickly.

Having curry for breakfast is a thing of beauty.

I'm not suggesting I met a significant enough number of them to constitute a robust sample size, but I am saying that my general impression of Sri Lankans is that they are friendly, chatty and hospitable people.

If Congress adds 5 percent to the debt, then their pay should be cut by 5 percent.

Washington was a swamp. It was not somewhere that they believed people would want to go, so the idea was that people got involved as a public service, not to make a career out of it.

If your goal is to destroy ISIS, there needs to be a ground force. It could be American or foreign.

When President Obama took office, I was transitioning out of the military and just seeing that he was taking the country in a direction that I didn't think was consistent with the Founding Fathers and with our constitutional roots.

One of the things that was missing from the 2014 election was a Contract With America type of platform.

I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid.

My constituents support Israel.

We saw how a lot of companies charge upwards of $1500 for a basic LSAT course, and we all thought that is simply way too much, even if the instruction was good.

President Obama has not only failed to uphold several of our nation's laws, he has vowed to continue to do so in order to enact his unpopular agenda.

The American people deserve to know exactly which laws the Obama Administration is refusing to enforce and why.

You can get elected to Congress without ever talking to black voters at all, and I think that's bad for the party.

Serving on the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight allows me to play a role making government more accountable by investigating waste, mismanagement, and improprieties.

We are in a conflict, whether we like it or not. I think we have to identify the enemy and call it by its name. And the enemy is an ideology rooted in militant Islam.

I'm running for Congress to reverse Obama's big government policies, to be faithful to the principles on which our nation was founded, and to make members of Congress play by the same rules as the rest of us.

If you want to look right now under Obama who our enemies are, just look at who he is nice to.