Quote

The Americans are so much more positive. They are much more in love with success. In Britain, they're a fairly envious bunch, and they love it if you fail.

John Cleese

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Much
Fairly
Love
Britain
Bunch
Fail
Americans
Failing
Positive
Success
Envious

More quotes by John Cleese

Image
I get bored easily. I've been bored most of my life.
John Cleese
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I'm not sure what's going on in Britain. I don't know what's going on in London. Because London is no longer an English city, and that's how they got the Olympics. I mean, they said, We're the most cosmopolitan city on Earth, but it doesn't feel English.
John Cleese
Image
What is absurd is not the teachings of the founders of religion, it's what followers subsequently make of it.
John Cleese
Image
As Daniel Levitin writes, our brain is a giant pattern detector. If we read something that coincides with what we already believe we're more likely to give it credence, while the opposite is not true.
John Cleese
Image
Bureaucrats shouldn't be in charge of comedy.
John Cleese
Image
Filming is like a long air journey: there's so much hanging around and boredom that they keep giving you food.
John Cleese
Image
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
Image
I think that money spoils most things, once it becomes the primary motivating force.
John Cleese
Image
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
Image
years ago we would have been burned for this. Now what I am suggesting is that we've advanced.
John Cleese
Image
My views are heretical to people who believe in political correctness.
John Cleese
Image
Political correctness is a bit like a granny, a maiden aunt arriving at a party when everyone's having a good time. And she comes in, they all start sort of buttoning up and becoming self-conscious and behaving properly and then when she leaves, you can have fun again.
John Cleese
Image
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.
John Cleese
Image
When you're being stalked by an angry mob with raspberries, the first thing to do is to release a tiger.
John Cleese
Image
Laughter is the best creative medicine.
John Cleese
Image
What's the bleedin' point?
John Cleese
Image
Muslims, who have a completely different value system, come to the West, then they should accept that there are certain basic values in the West intrinsic to our culture. Just as I wouldn't suggest that any Westerner walk down the streets of Saudi Arabia in a bikini.
John Cleese
Image
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.
John Cleese