A biography for Alexei Saylehasn’t been written yet.
“I'm distinct, really.”
“I am quite girly.”
“The optimum frequency with which comedians should do a series is every year. I do one every three years. My audience is literally dying off.”
“I liked 35 and in both my novels that is the age of the lead characters. I tried making them my age but they just seemed to keep moaning about stuff.”
“I think that my ideas of the world are that it's random and cruel but kind of quite comical really, and therefore the humour, in a sense, springs from that.”
“I feel sorry for many politicians... we expect them to be completely consistent and moralised when we're not.”
“I'm fascinated by comedy.”
“Americans have different ways of saying things. They say 'elevator', we say 'lift'... they say 'President', we say 'stupid psychopathic git.”
“I did six series for the BBC and that was enough. I've been writing for ten years, which is more challenging artistically.”
“People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.”
“It always seemed to be a constant that my parents were political.”
“Most of my friends are women - I quite fancied being a woman in a way.”
“I would say I was still a Marxist - which is not to be confused with being a Communist. Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.”
“A lot of those comics can't hold down relationships and they've got no other life apart from performing. They sleep in their Jags and a lot of them can't even talk. All they can do is tell gags.”
“You can't do comedy with a beard.”
“I feel really ambiguous about the psychology of people trying to do good in the world.”
“However, my problems with my memory are further complicated by the fact that while I don't have any recollection of things I have actually done, I have very vivid recollections of loads of things that I haven't done.”
“I exist as an annexe of the BBC. I'm down the road a bit from the main building, in a little hut.”
“I'm an intellectual.”
“I've accentuated the look over the years. As a comic, you try something and if it works you go with it and grind it to death.”