I am quite girly.

I'm distinct, really.

I'm fascinated by comedy.

I'm still fiercely ambitious.

People aren't universally heroic.

You can't do comedy with a beard.

I always thought communism was crap, really.

Israel is the Jimmy Saville of nation states.

Most of the Communists I knew were nice people.

Even a blind dog can find a bone every so often.

I wanted to write about how people's beliefs shift.

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.

It seems easier to make a career out of comedy now than it was in the 1980s.

Everyone I used to work with is still alive and can afford expensive lawyers.

I like the south of Spain, notably for the Moorish influence and the weather.

If sitcoms were easy to write, there'd be a lot of good ones, and there aren't.

People used to think I was just a shouty comic but I was doing stuff about Sartre.

As a comic, you try something and if it works you go with it and grind it to death.

I feel really ambiguous about the psychology of people trying to do good in the world.

I don't think people were that interested in what I was doing for the most of the 1990s.

If someone starts agreeing with me, I don't like it. Out of pique, I become something else.

Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

I exist as an annexe of the BBC. I'm down the road a bit from the main building, in a little hut.

Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious - it's like it's got a mind of its own.

For me, the showbiz memoir is uninteresting - you want to tell people something they don't know about.

I've been going to Granada for many years and 12 years ago bought a house a few miles outside the city.

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, may have had his charms, but he really couldn't be considered hip.

I feel sorry for many politicians we expect them to be completely consistent and moralised when we're not.

I feel sorry for many politicians... we expect them to be completely consistent and moralised when we're not.

People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.

There's a part of me that still hates everything, and my natural view default setting is still very cynical and dark

First off, I have to mention what is undoubtedly the greatest phenomenon of the modern era: All You Can Eat Buffets.

I did six series for the BBC and that was enough. I've been writing for ten years, which is more challenging artistically.

Now, as a comic, if you're vaguely amusing you can go straight into TV, then you play the O2 and then everyone's sick of you.

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.

If I won the lottery I'd start a charity that helped little family hardware stores, cobblers and fruit shops open in city centres.

Dire Straits is a great band. Someone tells you they like 'Brothers in Arms' and immediately you know they're a stupid annoying git.

Dire Straits is a great band. Someone tells you they like ""Brothers in Arms"" and immediately you know they're a stupid annoying git.

I don't think I'd ever get thin, but I don't see why I should necessarily think that I couldn't You can't live your life for your routines.

Americans have different ways of saying things. They say 'elevator', we say 'lift'... they say 'President', we say 'stupid psychopathic git.

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 don't think I'd ever get thin, but I don't see why I should necessarily think that I couldn't... You can't live your life for your routines.

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.

The journalists have obviously failed to capture my innate magnetism, humour and charisma, and they all need to be fired from their newspapers right away.

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 suppose the common idea of me is that I'm going to be someone who's hyper and cracking jokes all the time, but people who meet me are soon disabused of that notion.

My name is Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five Year Plan Sputnik Tractor Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski. Me Dad was a bit of a Communist, know what I mean?

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.

I'm sure a psychologist would see something highly significant in how absent-minded I am. I mean I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached to my neck by muscles, ligaments and my esophagus.

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