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Basil Fawlty was an easy character for me. For some reason, portraying a mean, uptight, incompetent bully comes naturally to me.
John Cleese
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John Cleese
Age: 84
Born: 1939
Born: October 27
Actor
Autobiographer
Comedian
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Voice Actor
Writer
Weston-super-Mare
Somerset
John Marwood Cleese
Reason
Uptight
Mean
Portraying
Incompetent
Bully
Naturally
Easy
Comes
Character
Basil
More quotes by John Cleese
The World is insane. With tiny spots of sanity, here and there... Not the other way around!
John Cleese
If I like chocolate it won't surprise you that I have a few chocolates in my fridge, but if you find out I've got 16 warehouses full of chocolate, you'd think I was insane. All these rich guys are insane, obsessive compulsive twits obsessed with money - money is all they think about - they're all nuts.
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Sci-fi has never really been my bag. But I do believe in a lot of weird things these days, such as synchronicity. Quantum physics suggests it's possible, so why not?
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I was always a sports nut but I've lost interest now in whether one bunch of mercenaries in north London is going to beat another bunch of mercenaries from west London.
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When I was in school, I was beaten every 30 minutes. It never did me any harm except for some psychological mal-adjustments and blurred vision.
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I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.
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There are 3 basic differences between we British and you Americans. One, we speak English, and you don't. Two, when we have a World Championship, we invite teams from other nations. Three, when you meet the British head of State, you only have to get down on one knee.
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We all die at the end, but does that nullify everything? Would most people rather say, I wish I hadn't been born? Once you're born you'll have to die, now is that funny or sad?
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I learned a lot of things about literature talking to people at the publishing company. Did you know that about 90 percent of celebrity autobiographies are ghostwritten?
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You have to create boundaries of space and then you have to create boundaries of time.
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If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And if I can persuade you to laugh at the particular point I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge its truth.
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Ask yourself, When does this decision have to be taken? and having answered it, defer the decision until then, in order to give yourself maximum pondering time.
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If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies... Do it in the 'closed' mode. But the moment the action is over, try to return to the 'open' mode... because in that mode we are the most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent.
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The thrill I got discovering Buster Keaton when I was growing up was so exciting. He was one of the greats.
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Because, as we all know, it’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it’s also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we’re not so sure about.
John Cleese
If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas
John Cleese
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him enter regional distribution codes in data field 97 to facilitate regression analysis on the back end.
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I wish you wusses would stop whining about your unhappiness. I'm really fed up with it. Pour yourself a scotch and pull yourself together. Go out and shoot something!
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Everything in comedy's got to be exactly right, which is why making a comedic film is kind of a difficult process, because, for most of the two years of shooting it and editing it and reshooting and all of that, it's not quite right. And it's only when you just at the end, you put the final polish on it, it becomes really funny again.
John Cleese
I think that money spoils most things, once it becomes the primary motivating force.
John Cleese