Quotes from Christopher Guest

I don't do any editing while we're making the movie. I sit down and watch it all with my editor, we make longhand notes on pads, and then we begin our work.

Strangely enough, among my dad's things, I found the diary of an ancestor who was born in 1797 and became a ventriloquist in London. That was quite chilling. It described exactly how I was as a child but 150 years earlier - doing voices, pretending to be a ventriloquist.

When my daughter played volleyball in school, they were the Wildcats. Well, there are about a million Wildcats. Why don't you come up with another name?

I don't read anything about my movies before or after I do films, or any part of show business. I think that keeps me in a kind of place where I can do the work that I need to do.

I don't read about myself, and I don't read any magazine that has anything to do with movies or show business.

When you hear someone talking in a restaurant or overhear someone talking on the street, there are very different patterns of conversation than you would hear in a conventional movie.

I painted sets before I ever performed.

I haven't had to do anything outside of show business my whole life. I've never been a waiter. I've only worked and gotten paid. It hasn't been a classic example of someone slogging through the business.

Peter Sellers is my great comedy hero.

With a documentary, you can cut away, you can do jump cuts, cut to a photograph at any point to bridge two scenes.

Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.

It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.

I like to play music, and I like to be funny, so I just do both at the same time.

The early parodies that talk-show people did of rock n' roll in the '50s were terrible. They didn't know it, they didn't like it - and that's a lethal combination.

They sell these golf aids that attach to your knee and your head and are supposed to keep your swing correct. It's futile beyond belief. I've never bought any, but I could watch those ads for 24 hours straight. People with straight faces saying this thing will take strokes off your game - that's my peculiar obsession.

We heard about people who went backstage at dog shows with scissors and cut parts of a poodle's hair off to sabotage the dog.

I wouldn't say I'm a connoisseur of film. I like certain films, but I don't pretend to be a connoisseur of films, no.

When you've been a character in a movie - and this has happened when we've done concerts as Spinal Tap or as The Folksmen - people see you as characters walking out of a movie. And you appear in public, then, to play, it's a very schizophrenic thing.

To me, what I realized when we were doing 'Spinal Tap' - and the four of us wrote that - is, really, the core of that is the relationship with the two guys who grew up together and that strain when the girlfriend comes in. If that wasn't there, it's a very different movie. Then it's just bumbling guys stumbling along.

In 'Spinal Tap,' there's the fake historical quality of 'Stonehenge.' It's something the musicians look at with a mystical reverence. In folk music, it's the seriousness with which these people approach their 'art.'

I don't think we've ever known what the hell's going on when we do Tap shows. It's possible the audience are effectively getting to see more of the movie when we play. You know, they know the songs, so anything we do onstage, whether we're meaning to or not, is an extension of the film. Other than that, I wouldn't understand what's going on.

'This is Spinal Tap' was a film we felt really had to be done like that. It wouldn't have worked any other way. And it turned out to be the first time a fiction film had really been made in a documentary format. I continued to do that, obviously, because it's a fun way to work.

You know it's important to have a Jeep in Los Angeles. That front wheel drive is crucial when it starts to snow on Rodeo Drive.

It's dangerous talking about comedy; it gets to be very tedious and presumptuous.