John Clarke interviewed by Ian Fraser (NZFGC Conference)

Life could be pretty boring if we didn’t make it funnier. I was always trying to make things more entertaining.

– John Clarke on trying to make people laugh when he was young

It always amused me that New Zealand blokes would get incredibly serious over stuff that didn’t matter in order to be manly, and their voices would drop a bit...

– John Clarke on the inspiration for the voice of Fred Dagg

Our job, it seems to me in this world, is to find the pluses in the position we’re in...

– John Clarke focusing on the positive qualities his parents instilled in him

I’ve always just followed my instinct in this life.

– John Clarke, on not making big life plans

It’s of the utmost importance for politicians to keep their promises. I would if I could.

– John Clarke, pretending to be Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

I realised that when I wanted to do something on television that had some impact, I needed to find a character which was easy for me to do, and it was because it was just a sort of way of talking, had a recognisable kind of iconography, which would be a hat, a black singlet ...

– How John Clarke dreamed up Fred Dagg

The great lesson of my dad was that I didn’t want to work for other people. I wanted to back my own judgement and make my own mistakes, and fall in my own hole and clamber my own way out of it.

– John Clarke, on his dad's choice to work for a boss