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I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.
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
History
Write
Book
Writing
Comedy
More quotes by John Cleese
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.
John Cleese
I think it's because in America you always get the sense that if you fail, you can just pack up your things and go somewhere else and try again. But in England, it's so geographically small that if somebody succeeds here, it reduces your chances of succeeding.
John Cleese
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.
John Cleese
The Americans are just more enthusiastic and more likely to engage in hyperbole.
John Cleese
When you've been doing comedy for forty years, you really do know most of the jokes. And even if you don't know a specific joke, you can pretty much guess what it's going to be.
John Cleese
I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.
John Cleese
If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?
John Cleese
years ago we would have been burned for this. Now what I am suggesting is that we've advanced.
John Cleese
A satisfied customer. We should have him stuffed.
John Cleese
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?
John Cleese
When we hold a World Championship for a particular sport, we invite teams from other countries to play as well.
John Cleese
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.
John Cleese
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
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?
John Cleese
Laughter is the best creative medicine.
John Cleese
I think there are so many activities going on, like mountaineering. You know, you would pay good money not to have to do that, and yet there are people racing out who want to spend their spare time clambering up rocks.
John Cleese
I tend to have an odd split in my mind: I tend to look at it as a writer and when the writing thing is OK and I'm happy with it, then I put on my actor's hat.
John Cleese
I think the problem with people like this is that they are so stupid that they have no idea how stupid they are.
John Cleese
This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious.
John Cleese
Filming is like a long air journey: there's so much hanging around and boredom that they keep giving you food.
John Cleese