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The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.

John Cleese

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John Cleese
Age: 85
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
Else
Evolutionary
Anything
Mode
Closed
Significance
Main
Gets
Humor
Open
Quicker

More quotes by John Cleese

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Some actors, I think, want to feel that they are as creative as the writer. And the answer is, frankly, they're not.
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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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Laughter destroys any divisions between people.
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Telling people how to be creative is easy - being creative is difficult.
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I was a terrible dancer. I dance like an Englishman.
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I think that the real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature.
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Aping urbanity, Oozing with vanity, Plump as a manatee, Faking humanity, Intellectual inanity, Journalistic calamity, Fox Noise insanity, You're a profanity, Hannity.
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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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A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed.
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Laughter is the best creative medicine.
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I can certainly see that you know your wine. Most of the guests who stay here wouldn't know the difference between Bordeaux and Claret.
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I would like to do my own eulogy, and then shoot myself and then get in the coffin.
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No hope for planet at all. But I will be gone before the planet is gone, so it's your problem.
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I have a tendency sometimes to get too logical with what I'm writing, just because I want it to be kind of perfect.
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Who's ever going to write a film in which I get the girl? Me!
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When the target audience is American teenage kids, you can have problems. My generation prized really fine acting and writing. Sometimes you have to go back to the basic principles which underpin great visual comedy.
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You have to create boundaries of space and then you have to create boundaries of time.
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When you do comedy in front of an audience, they are the ones who tell you whether it's funny or not and which bits are funny and which bits need to be fixed.
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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.
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It's a plastic surgeon you need, not a doctor
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