Scott Thompson quotes:

Americans know as much about Canada as straight people do about gays. Americans arrive at the border with skis in July, and straight people think that being gay is just a phase. A very long phase.

I think the Canadian sense of humor is dryer than America's and juicier than Britain's. I think it's a cross between the two of them, really.

I'm not a wilting flower. I'm honest, so I pick a lot of fights. I've burned a lot of bridges.

In France, everyone speaks French 'cause they think it's cool. Gives 'em, gives 'em an excuse to smoke.

In Canadian comedy, you'll almost never see guns. If you bring a gun into a scene, it's like, 'Whoa! Wow, how are we going to deal with that!' Guns in an American comedy are a given. Violence in America is used in a much more cavalier way.

I've pretty much given up on the orange. I really have. I just don't even bother. It's just either sour, or woody, or the skin's too thick. It's very nice when you come across the perfect orange, because it's really a beautiful experience. But the stakes are too high.

Fathers should start teaching the boys how to punch.

If comedy duos don't like each other, it just won't work.

Comedy is actually very macho driven.

When I was younger I wanted to be a big movie star who'd get to be funny on talk shows and then I wanted to retire and write science fiction.

My feeling with my characters is that they all have a right to feel exactly the way that they do, so I never censor them. I don't judge them.

Activism isn't about holding your faults up to the light. That's what comedy is about, it's about saying, 'Look at this person who is so flawed and frail and damaged. And we're all this frail and damaged so let's laugh at it.'

This world is filled with five billion people with five billion different ways of looking at things.

I first got into fruit when I was a teenager, when my life was changing in every way. The first time I had a mango, at like 18, I was like, 'Where has this been my whole life?'

I guess chemistry is just another word for love.

Activism isn't about holding your faults up to the light. That's what comedy is about, it's about saying, 'Look at this person who is so flawed and frail and damaged. And we're all this frail and damaged so let's laugh at it.

Canadian comedians are generally more well-rounded... They have to do a lot more. In order to have a career in this country, you have to do everything. And in the States you can narrow-cast, you can be just a sitcom performer or a stand-up comedian or a sketch performer.

I think a case could be made that there's sort of a crisis of masculinity in the West. Particularly with white males.

When I found out I had cancer, I just said one thing: 'I want to hold on to life' and that changed everything for me.

Art is about the edges and the sharp corners and those places are not conducive to activism, which is about putting on a gloss.

My cancer continues to make for all kind of hilarity.

People don't listen when you lecture. No one wants to be talked down to or scolded.

I believe the things that happened to me as a child scarred me terribly, and I wish somebody would have helped me with some of the things that happened.

My theory is that comedy comes from little people.

A lot of gay men are in delusion if they think they're super macho.

When you are not treated seriously, you develop comically. Its sense of oneself is so fractured and fragile that it's like the picked-on kid who has to become funny.

When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the sinless, pure, and average of the faux idyllic.

I first got into fruit when I was a teenager, when my life was changing in every way. The first time I had a mango, at like 18, I was like, 'Where has this been my whole life?

I wanted to be a male ballet dancer.

I resented that my career wasn't going the way that it was supposed to. And I was angry that I wasn't getting the parts that I wanted.

I think Canadian humor is a little less broad than American humor.

I'm a total nerd. I love fantasy.

I'm not really cool, or dashing, or any of those things.

My parents won't let me have a motorcycle, but they give me all the guns I want. I asked them for a motorcycle last Christmas and they told me I'd only kill myself. They got me this twelve-gauge instead.

The gay male is always going to be at the bottom.

Well I think comedy everywhere has lost a bit of its bite. In Canada, I can't argue with the quality, but it feels like it's gotten a little safe.

Why is being outed such a big deal? When I find out that someone's gay, my respect for them increases tenfold.