Quotes by John Cleese

• The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip.
• 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.
• If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?'
• You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.
• If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
• It seems astounding to me now that the video games are perhaps as important as the movie themselves. And people will spend 2 or 3 years obsessing about the video game in exactly the same way that they'd be obsessing about the movie if they were working on that.
• The really good idea is always traceable back quite a long way, often to a not very good idea which sparked off another idea that was only slightly better, which somebody else misunderstood in such a way that they then said something which was really rather interesting.
• The thrill I got discovering Buster Keaton when I was growing up was so exciting. He was one of the greats.
• 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.
• If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?
• Wine is wonderful stuff. But so many people are put off by the snobbery of it.
• I can't tell you how scary it can be walking onto a movie and suddenly joining this family, it's like going to somebody else's Christmas dinner, everyone knows everyone, and you're there and you're not quite sure what you're supposed to be doing.
• Who's ever going to write a film in which I get the girl? Me!
• 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.
• I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.
• I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.
• I think that sometimes you do something that makes a small group of people laugh, which is all we were trying to do; we were just trying to make each other laugh.
• I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.
• He who laughs most, learns best.
• God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.
• For me, the great problem growing up in England was that I had a very narrow concept of what God can be, and it was damn close to an old man with a beard.
• Don't let anyone tell you what you ought to like... Some wines that some experts think are absolutely exquisite don't appeal to me at all.
• But then acting is all about faking. We're all very good at faking things that we have no competence with.
• A man will give up almost anything except his suffering.
• 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.
• Creativity is not a talent, it is a way of operating.
• Creativity is not a talent, it’s a way of operating
• Creativity is not a talent, it's a way of operating
• Life is too important to be taken seriously, unless you're trying to parallel park—then all bets are off!
• Life’s too important to be taken seriously, but believe me, doing your best is the best way to not make a total fool of yourself!
• Successful people are just those with enough bad ideas who tried one good one.
• Life is like a sausage: it looks good in the packaging, but we have to accept that it's just cruelty behind the papery exterior.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously, so loosen your tie and let the laughter carve the path to closeness.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously—but that doesn’t mean we can’t have an adventure while we're at it!
• Creativity is letting yourself go while knowledge is knowing where to stop.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously—after all, even the clouds can start a rain dance.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously; if you can't laugh at yourself, you might be missing the whole punchline.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously—unless you're avoiding zucchini carrots, in which case, how serious can you be?
• Life is too important to be taken seriously, but it's far more important to take a pie in the face seriously.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously, unless you're assembling IKEA furniture.
• Success is like a fart; it stinks when you force it, but if you let it flow naturally, it’s remarkably refreshing.
• Life is too important to be taken seriously—so shed the weight of expectations, make mistakes often, and laugh until your insides ache.
• Adventure is just another name for a slight mistake in navigation.
• Success is like a fart; it only really stinks if you try to hold onto it!
• Success is like a fart; it only matters to you. The public doesn’t care about your struggle; it's inspired once they smell the winner.