John Cleese quotes

John Cleese is a renowned British comedian, actor, and writer, best known for his brilliant performances in the legendary comedy series, Monty Python. With a career spanning decades, Cleese's comedic genius continues to captivate audiences worldwide. He has starred in timeless classics like A Fish Called Wanda and Fawlty Towers. Cleese's unique style, combining wit and physical comedy, has made him one of the most beloved figures in the entertainment industry. Stay up-to-date with John Cleese's latest projects and performances. Learn more about this comedic icon at john-cleese.com.

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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.

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

A man will give up almost anything except his suffering.

- John Cleese

I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.

- 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.

- John Cleese

If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?'

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

Who's ever going to write a film in which I get the girl? Me!

- John Cleese

If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

But then acting is all about faking. We're all very good at faking things that we have no competence with.

- John Cleese

Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.

- John Cleese

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

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

I can never do better than Fawlty Towers whatever I do. Now I very much want to teach young talent some rules of the game.

- John Cleese

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

- John Cleese

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

- 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

He who laughs most, learns best.

- 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

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.

- John Cleese

God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered.

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

Wine is wonderful stuff. But so many people are put off by the snobbery of it.

- John Cleese

The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip.

- John Cleese

We don't know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops.

- John Cleese

I noticed years ago that when people (myself definitely included) are anxious they tend to busy themselves with irrelevant activities, because these distract from and therefore reduce their actual experience of anxiety. To stay perfectly still is to feel the fear at its maximum intensity, so instead you scuttle around doing things as though you are, in some mysterious way, short of time.

- John Cleese

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.

- John Cleese

Acting is all about faking. We're all very good at faking things that we have no competence with.

- John Cleese