Stand Up Comedians

"I'm quite lucky, because I've got a small, decorative concrete pig."

"What I'd like to do now - well, what I'd like to do now is grow my beard very long, weave it into my pubes and strum it like a harp."

"Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost."

"Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference."

"The bravest thing that men do is love women."

"In the forties, to get a girl you had to be a GI or a jock. In the fifties, to get a girl you had to be Jewish. In the sixties, to get a girl you had to be black. In the seventies, to get a girl you've got to be a girl."

"Nixon's the kind of guy that if you were drowning 50 feet off shore, he'd throw you a 30 foot rope. Then Kissinger would go on TV the next night and say that the President had met you more than half-way."

"[On the "fixation" about their transgender identity] I happen to be trans. It isn’t the central part of me. I also happen to play the piano. I also happen to have blue eyes."

"I've had such disgusting things said to me over 37 years and now, to stand to be an MP in the seat of democracy in the United Kingdom, I've had to have such a torrent of transphobic abuse at that point when we're talking about democracy, we're talking about making people's lives better. It’s rather sad that these people feel that they want to do this attacking and this abuse online"

"[Confirming their use of a women's toilet] You've got to question people's sensibility, if they're going around taking photographs of people going into toilets. I go to the loo to go to the loo. I don't know where other people's imaginations are going."

"[On the Labour MP Rosie Duffield refusing to consider Izzard a woman] She has got to join the 21st century. She’s got to catch up with the rest of us. The vast majority of the world is now moving forwards … The millennium has happened and we’re 22 years into it. So come and join us in the 21st century."

"I prefer she/her, don’t mind he/him, and I’m going to be relaxed about it. It’s not the time for fighting each other on this."

"[Asked if he is misgendering Izzard] The Equalities Act also protects my belief that he's a man. What I find extraordinary about Eddie is he's an intelligent man. He's an enormously talented person. For him to not understand that his going into women's toilets means that men like Adam Graham [the transgender double rapist who identifies as Isla Bryson] can go into women's toilets. I just don't get how he doesn't see that. I can only imagine that he does see it and he’s ignoring it."

"I find the idea that I can’t make fun of Eddie Izzard and Sam Smith, two of the most ridiculous people around at the moment, absurd. I wouldn’t say he's sold out. But he's in the grip of the same mania that a lot of other people are in. Eddie Izzard is trans? Really? He’s a fully intact crossdresser. How is he trans? I am as trans as Eddie Izzard."

"In 2019, the US podcaster Joe Rogan asked how he moved from girl to boy mode, and Izzard replied: "I take off my heels.""

"The sad thing is women, particularly feminists, once adored Izzard. Not only the greatest 1990s stand-up, he was truly brave. On stage and off, in lipstick, leather skirts and sparkly eye-shadow, he subverted rigid ideas about what men could be. "These aren't women's clothes," he'd say. "They’re my clothes." He called himself a "transvestite": a heterosexual guy who sometimes wore frocks. And while some men abused him in the street, women thought he was cool. Then "transvestite" became an unfashionable term and the concept of "gender identity" took hold. Whether you're a man or woman was defined not by your sexed body but your inner, soul-like essence."

"Yet Mr. Izzard never reads as hostile or even aggressive. Unlike most American stand-ups, he attacks neither his audience nor himself, instead creating the illusion that he is courteously letting you eavesdrop on an infinite internal dialogue."

"[From a review of Sexie] Mr. Izzard, whose theme is nothing less than civilization and its multifarious contents, traffics in delirious, dizzying circles of ideas and images. On the surface they have nothing to do with one another. And yet they flow effortlessly into a single, opalescent stream of consciousness."

"Once he throws a conversational ball into the air, he keeps it in play for the rest of the night, even when you assume he's forgotten all about it. And every one of them is inspected with a magnifying eye that inflates everything to the point of absurdity."

"It's hyper-complex how humans work [...] Yet we're obsessed about boy-girl, whereas if a tiger is attacking you...[...] A tiger is attacking me? Is it a boy tiger, is it a girl tiger? I'm not sure — it's a f***ing tiger! You can surely check? No, I can't check. It's a tiger."

"I'm severely atypically dyslexic. My spelling's all over the place: cat with a 'k', ceiling with an 's'. I-Spy games went on for ever as a kid."

"There’s another name I’m going to add in as well, which is Suzy, which I wanted to be since I was 10. So I’m going to be Suzy Eddie Izzard, that’s how I’m going to roll, so people can choose what they want. They can’t make a mistake, they can’t go wrong."

"[On proposed gender self-id reforms and women-only spaces] I don't have all the answers [...] I happen to be trans. All I can do is say how it is for me. I can't come in and wave a magic wand and solve all the problems, because some people are very entrenched."

"Charles Darwin wrote a famous book in 18[gibberish]. And that book was an interesting book, cuz it was called "Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-Monkey-You"."

"The main point is, did God tell him to make a boat, or did Noah just use his captain common sense? Cause there are a number of us, if we were somewhere where it was raining and raining and raining and raining and raining and raining and raining and raining, and we had a big pile of wood, some of us might put two and two together and go, "I'm gonna make a bloody boat!" Others might go, "I'm gonna make a hairdresser's", "I'm gonna build a monkey emporium.", "I'm gonna build a big pair of wooden shoes, that would fit a giant." … But he made a boat. Oh, he was quite sensible! And what did he put on the boat? His family. What else? Animals. Which animals? Any he could find. Did he put two of every animal in the world on the boat? No! How can I be so sure? Try it!"

"Scrabble was invented by Nazis to piss off kids with dyslexia. This is true, they proved this one. The word dyslexia was invented by Nazis to piss off kids with dyslexia."

"And I think that if God did exist, he had many children. I think Jesus proves this. Jesus must be the seventh son of God. A-sus, B-sus, C-sus, D-sus, E-sus, F-sus, G-sus. That's just logic. That's just mathematical. And T-sus would always be fucking about. And P-sus does deliveries. C-sus started the Roman Empire. Cae-sus. F-sus, City in Turkey. B-sus was covered in something. Some people applauding there; other people going, "What?" … B-sus was covered in bees."

"So I've learnt that the world is 4,500 million years old. If you're very religious, then it's not 4,500 million years old, it's 6,000 years old. One of these is not correct."

"Homo Sapiens wouldn't have made it, and everything would be different! Television would be … you know, Book of the Month club on television would be: Neanderthal presenter: "And now we have the professor … uh … whaddayou think of this book?" Neanderthal professor: "Wha' …?" Presenter: "What do you think of this book, in a critical way?" Professor: "It's all right …" Presenter: "There you have it. It's all right!""

"Racist people, interestingly, are never as polite as smokers. Have you noticed that? Smokers always go, "Do you mind if I smoke? Oh, you do? Okay, I'll go outside and have a cigarette." Racist people never go, "Do you mind if I'm racist? Oh, I'll go outside … fucking blue people, eh? Coming here, steal our hamsters …""

"So, I thought, it's not working. So I threw my breasts out of the window of my Lamborghini, in my mind … no, I threw the breasts out of the window of my Ford Fiesta, in my mind. Actually, I threw them out over the handlebars of my bicycle [mouthing the words] in my mind. And they hit a small child, who ran, "Mum, mum, mum … I've been attacked by … jellyfish!""

"No matter how much makeup I wore, people just kept saying "Yes, sir! Would you like tea with that, sir?" "Yes, I would like tea. Why don't you put it on my breasts?" "Certainly. Tea for this man's breasts! Anything else, sir?""

"So … uh … I'd better explain the tits. Um … didn't have those at school. Wanted to, but not in the school curriculum … even though I asked."

"But there must've been a Death Star canteen, yeah? There must've been a cafeteria downstairs, in between battles, where Darth Vader could just chill and go down: "I will have the penne all'arrabbiata." "You'll need a tray." "Do you know who I am?" "Do you know who I am?" "This is not a game of who the fuck are you. For I am Vader, Darth Vader, Lord Vader. I can kill you with a single thought." "Well, you'll still need a tray." "No, I will not need a tray. I do not need a tray to kill you. I can kill you without a tray, with the power of the Force, which is strong within me. Even though I could kill you with a tray if I so wished, for I would hack at your neck with the thin bit until the blood flowed across the canteen floor." "No, the food is hot. You'll need a tray to put the food on." "Oh, I see, the food is hot. I'm sorry, I did not realize...Ha..ha..ha.h.. I thought you were challenging me for the fight to death." "A fight to the death? This is a canteen, I work here." "Yes, but I am Vader. I am Lord Vader? Every one challenges me to a fight to the death.""

"Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh … well, until you killed them all, I suppose."

"There's 200,000 gods in Hinduism … and they've got gods like Shiva, the God of Creation and Destruction. Which is a good god to be, 'cause you can go *whoom* [creates thing] "What do you think? Do you like that? You don't like that?" *whoom* [destroys thing] If you're just the God of Creation, you're going *whoom* "Do you like that? You don't? All right, I'll put it in the garage … shit, I haven't got a garage!" *whoom* [creates garage]"

"Pope Pius XII was meant to go and castigate Hitler for being a [air quotes] "Genocidal Fuckhead … [air quotes again] with bunny rabbit ears". But he didn't, he wimped out, and for that history has renamed that Pope as "Pope Gutless Bastard I.""

"The Crusades were, "We kill you in the name of Jesus!" "Wait, we have Jesus, too! He's a prophet in our religion! We kill you in the name of Jesus!" "Do you? … Well, we kill you for your dark skin, for Jesus was a white man from Oxford!" "No, he wasn't! He was from Judea! Dark-skinned man, such as we!" "… Really? Look, we've come all this way. Would you mind awfully if we hacked you to bits? Just for the press back home.""

"[On fully transitioning to being a woman via surgery] If I looked beautiful, like Julian Clary, then maybe I would do it. But the way I look, everyone would know I was a bloke who had had a sex change. Besides, it would confuse things because I like girls."

"If you're going up for a Hollywood film, you'd better stay in boy mode because producers don't have wild imaginations."

"I was walking past a building site in Liverpool and a brickie shouted at me from the scaffolding, 'Hey Eddie, where's your lippie?' I said I'd left it at home, and he replied: 'Wanna borrow mine?' Moments like that make everything worthwhile."

"[On coming out on stage] My first joke at that gig was, 'If you're a stand-up, it's good to be a minority because then you've got something to rail against. If you're black, you can rail against white supremacists; if you're poor, you can rail against the rich. But if you're a white, male, middle-class stand-up, it's shit. So thank God I'm a transvestite.' It went down a storm."

"If you can walk down the street in women's clothes, you can do anything."

"That's how I see my audience, a surrogate affection machine. It doesn't necessarily have to be comedy, either. It could be drama or music, anything where you want that love back."

"What I want people to understand is this isn't an act. This is an intrinsic part of who I am. I wear girlie stuff on the street, not just on stage."

"[On the aim of his exercise routine] Lean and lithe are the two places I am trying to get to. Seeing as I am fairly blokey-looking, with a broad chest, if I am going to get into what people consider girls' clothing, I need to go for lean in the torso department."

"I don't do drag [...] Drag is about glamour, pearls, wigs, sequins and that's not where I am. What I am doing is much edgier."

"I can have fantastic conversations with women about clothing and make-up, the external areas of girliedom, because I completely share their interest in it. So I have the fun, sexy, let's-go-dress-up part of being a woman in me but not the rest."

"(Talking about American and British Language) You say 'erbs and we say herbs, because there's a fucking 'H' in it."

"I had to chat up girls, and I'd only tagged them before. I didn't have the verbal power to be able to say, "Susan, I saw you in the classroom today. As the sun came from behind the clouds, a burst of brilliant light caught your hair, it was haloed in front of me. You turned, your eyes flashed fire into my soul, I immediately read the words of Dostoevsky and Karl Marx, and in the words of Albert Schweitzer, 'I fancy you.' " But no! At 13, you're just going, " 'Ello, Sue. I saw you in the room... I've got legs, have you? Oh yeah... Do you like bread? I've got a French loaf. [mimes smacking her with the loaf and dashing off] Bye! (I love you!)""