Welcome to the world of Jo Brand, where wit meets wisdom and humor knows no bounds. Jo Brand, the renowned British comedian, writer, and actress, has graced audiences with her quick wit and sharp observations on life’s quirks. With a career spanning decades, Brand has become an icon in the comedy scene, known for her fearless approach to taboo topics and her unapologetic humor.
Born Josephine Grace Brand in 1957, Brand’s journey into comedy began in the 1980s, where she quickly made a name for herself with her unique blend of dry humor and astute social commentary. From stand-up stages to television screens, Brand’s comedic genius has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry, earning her countless accolades and a dedicated fan base around the globe. In this collection, we delve into some of Jo Brand’s most memorable quotes, offering a glimpse into her razor-sharp wit and comedic brilliance.
I’d love to live in Kent but it’s all a question of work. Jo Brand
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
My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and they met as young socialists. That probably tells you everything you need to know about my attitude to money – I’ve never really been bothered about it. Jo Brand
I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning – though I never really intended it to be – was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly. Jo Brand
I have a utilitarian approach to dressing; as long as I quite like it and it covers me up, I don’t care what it is. Jo Brand
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
So, I kind of rather was hoping that people thought it would have a nice mixture of different topics and it also takes in the fact that I’ve had two children recently. Jo Brand
People can forgive each other. Jo Brand
I am a hip-hop artist, as you probably know. My hip-hop name is Big Smalls. Jo Brand
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
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
I used to do bell ringing in Benenden church. It was really good fun, actually. My best friend’s dad was the local vicar, and so it was expected as her best friend that I would go to church every Sunday with her. Jo Brand
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
My dad’s a very sensitive man, but as the archetypal rebellious teenager, I didn’t realise that. Jo Brand
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
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
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
I’ve seen a lot of women give up after they’ve had three or four bad gigs in a row. It’s very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally. Jo Brand
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
I thought I was funny as a kid. Jo Brand
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
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
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
I went on the pill when I was 16, put on four stone… so that proved to be a very effective contraceptive. Jo Brand
Even when I wasn’t overweight I was never one of those girls or women who wanted to look nice. I always thought it wasn’t important. Jo Brand
Having children is fab. They keep me young and make me get up in the morning. Jo Brand
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
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
I think self-esteem is fluid. It’s not a fixed state, and so some days are better than others. Jo Brand
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
The funny thing is, I don’t actually think of myself as fat at all. I don’t think I am. Not really. Jo Brand
To me, a politician’s job is to listen to constituents’ problems and try to sort them out. Jo Brand
I think there’s a danger that we’re moving towards a state where the people we are expected to admire are almost not human anymore, and I don’t like that. I prefer it when someone looks like a nice person, and you think, ‘I could have a laugh with them in the pub.’ Jo Brand
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
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
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
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
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
The way to a man’s heart is through his hanky pocket with a breadknife. Jo Brand
Men are fantastic – as a concept. Jo Brand
It’s actually very hard when you’re settled in one place to completely uproot yourself and go. Jo Brand
It wasn’t a conscious effort to have kids later. It was just the way life goes. Jo Brand
I’m a real Kentish maid, you know. Jo Brand
I’m a Luddite with computers, and I’m slightly worried about being hacked as well. Jo Brand
There’s lots of different feminist groups. It’s not as straightforward as just looking like a plumber. Jo Brand
Occasionally, some sitcoms still stereotype women – the old dragon or the dolly bird – but on the whole we’ve moved away from that. Jo Brand
Anything is good if it’s made of chocolate. Jo Brand
I think some people ramp a side of themselves up for performance purposes. Jo Brand
I had always fancied a go at the comedy and when it started to go reasonably well and the opportunity arose for me to move into it full time, I just couldn’t turn it down. I just took the risk, and I just wanted to see if it would work and thankfully it did. Jo Brand
The problem with comedy audiences – it’s like the Coliseum – when they see someone struggling, they don’t feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it. Jo Brand
There are 10-20 times more male comics than female comics; it’s something to do with the social structure of society. Jo Brand
I think actors go along a continuum from Simon Callow down to kind of Ross Kemp, and I like to think of myself as the Ross Kemp of comedy. He’s very good in ‘East Enders’ because he plays a version of himself. I think I can play a version of myself – that’s about all I can do. Jo Brand
I think my comedy, the put-downs I do to hecklers, are the accumulated bitterness of years of people feeling that it’s perfectly acceptable to make a comment on your appearance when they don’t even know you. Jo Brand
I don’t know if we will ever try again because those sort of things are very hard to organise but yes, I’ve known Doon for years and John as well but I hadn’t met Will before, and he turned out to be a good laugh. Jo Brand
When I got married, the Sun ran the headline: ‘Here comes the bride, all fat and wide.’ Luckily, it was a few days after the wedding – but it was still hideous to read at a great romantic moment. Jo Brand
I think the key attributes for a good speaker are someone that’s articulate and someone that puts a fair amount of humour into what they do. Jo Brand
There are comics who treat women fairly appallingly. But I can be great friends with them because I don’t tend to do that ticking of boxes: it can make life too simplistic. Jo Brand
Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone. Jo Brand
I’m not a flag waver for obesity. It’s not healthy, and you have a crap life because there is such a downer on it. Jo Brand
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
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
The comedian sticks as religiously to her theme as a dancer sticks to a diet. Jo Brand
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
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
Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label. Jo Brand
One of the guys that used to run it – for some reason I’ve no idea why he used to call me the Sea Monster and I was just looking around for a name and thought that’ll do. That lasted for a couple of years probably. Jo Brand
There are two types of people in this world: one who opens a packet of biscuits, has one and puts the rest back in the cupboard, and one who eats the whole packet in one go. Jo Brand
You look across the board at comedy quiz shows, and they are mainly hosted by men. Jo Brand
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
When I was a nurse I never had much money, and I was still happy then. Jo Brand
Whatever situation you are in, that is what is normal for you. Jo Brand
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
I have friends who vote Tory, and I’m appalled, but that’s not to say they’re not great people in so many other ways. Jo Brand
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
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
I think there’s a far more general audience now because I’ve done more populist stuff on telly. Jo Brand
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
I’m not really a churchy person, although I do think Jesus was a good bloke. Jo Brand
I’m sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people. Jo Brand
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
There are lots of people who believe that caricature of me the tabloids created, so they think they don’t like me. Jo Brand
I tend to think the world is a bit of a miserable place, so anyone who can add to people’s optimistic, cheerful side is doing a good job, which is what I hope I’m doing. Jo Brand
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
With proper acting, I don’t know what I would play – I got sent a script for a play, and it said in the notes that my proposed character was ‘hideously fat and ugly’. That made my day. I mean, I do know I am no oil painting. Jo Brand
Wild men are so enormously attractive. Jo Brand
Everything becomes magnified at night. Sounds travel in a different way, it’s dark, and everything seems far more spooky. Jo Brand
Over the years I attempted to make my style a bit more relaxed ’cause the initial style you couldn’t watch for more than ten minutes without wanting to kill me. Jo Brand
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
I’ve never been a fan of euphemism. Jo Brand
I like to read my diary occasionally to remind myself what a miserable, alienated old sod I used to be. Jo Brand
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
I read that book ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’, got a bit desperate halfway through and ate it. Jo Brand
I just don’t like travelling very much. Jo Brand
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
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
Each generation has a backlash against the generation before. Jo Brand
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
Even nice things don’t make you happy when you’re tired. Jo Brand
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
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