Quotes by John Cleese

“I was very sad to hear of the death of Ronnie Barker, who was such a warm, friendly and encouraging presence to have when I started in television. He was also a great comic actor to learn from.”

“You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.”

“I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.”

“Now most people do not want an ordinary life in which they do a job well, earn the respect of their collaborators and competitors, bring up a family and have friends. That's not enough any more, an...”

“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 c...”

“The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people’s respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this “perfectionism” is likel...”

“It seemed as though he had a fundamental belief that the merit of his argument depended on the strength of his feelings about the matter, and since he always felt uncontrollably passionate about ev...”

“Terry Gilliam has spoken scathingly about my preference for physical comfort. I have come to the conclusion that this is very much his problem.”

“Four hundred years ago, we would have been burnt for this film. Now, I'm suggesting that we've made an advance.”

“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 ...”

“Basil Fawlty was an easy character for me. For some reason, portraying a mean, uptight, incompetent bully comes naturally to me.”

“If I had not gone into Monty Python, I probably would have stuck to my original plan to graduate and become a chartered accountant, perhaps a barrister lawyer, and gotten a nice house in the suburb...”

“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 f...”

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.”

“Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers — which is ...”

“When you get to my age, and I'm 66 now, you realize that the world is a madhouse and that most people are operating in fantasy anyway. So once you realise that, it doesn't bother you much.”

“Because these people are operating at a very very low level of mental health, they are incapable of understanding the teaching.”

“A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.”

“Aping Urbanity, Oozing with VanityPlump as a Manatee, Faking HumanityJournalistic Calamity, Intellectual InanityFox News Insanity, You're a profanityHannity”

“When I was teaching, the headmaster told me You know, the sad thing about true stupidity is that you can do absolutely nothing about it.”