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I grew up in a family that was very barbed and difficult, and there was a lot of humor. None of it was painless humor. All of it was at someone else's expense. It was kind of always about power.

Now, where does my comedy come from, like, as a human being? Yeah, when I was a kid I was dyslexic and had to go to special-ed every day and felt stupid about that and got very witty to defend myself.

I don't know if I realized that I was funny, but I realized how healing and important humor was in my childhood.

During the Great Depression, when people laughed their worries disappeared. Audiences loved these funny men. I decided to become one.

I grew up as a very sarcastic person. I was always the class clown, and to date girls, I had to be really funny. I was really skinny growing up. I was so thin, I had to run around in the shower to get wet. That kind of thin. So I always had to rely on humor and sarcasm.

I've always surrounded myself with funny people.

My capacity for humour may have come largely from my father - he liked to entertain people, make people laugh.

Looking back, I remember my family laughing a lot. We were never the kind of people that dwelled on hard times. My family laughs when things are tough. Growing up like that, I got used to making jokes about things that were difficult. So when I started doing stand-up, that's what I went towards.

I was named Class Clown in the high school yearbook, so I was always turning to comedy and laughter to heal and to get me through things.