Quotes from 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.

Your Mother was A Hamster and you Father Smelled of elder berries

Why write about the past? Well, there's more of it.

I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.

I would say that I began with a very edgy, very driven personality and after a sufficient amount of therapy over many, many years, I managed to become rather relaxed and happy.

If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time to be considering alternative strategies.

Filming takes a lot out of you. It really does. It's immensely demanding, and you have to put the rest of your life in the icebox until you do your final shot.

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

The thrill I got discovering Buster Keaton when I was growing up was so exciting. He was one of the greats.

I think it takes a long time, as you get older, to realize just how crazy the world is, just how ridiculous it all is.

Ask yourself, "When does this decision have to be taken?" and having answered it, defer the decision until then, in order to give yourself maximum pondering time.

My mum died about three years ago at the age of 101, and just towards the end, as she began to run out of energy, she did actually stop trying to tell me what to do most of the time.

Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.

I just think that sometimes we hang onto people or relationships long after they've ceased to be of any use to either of you. I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.

When people quote sketches to me, half the time I don't know what they're talking about so I have to sort of go, aha, yes, oh yep, I remember that and lie my way out of it.

Some actors, I think, want to feel that they are as creative as the writer. And the answer is, frankly, they're not.

I wish you wusses would stop whining about your unhappiness. I'm really fed up with it. Pour yourself a scotch and pull yourself together. Go out and shoot something!

The Americans all love 'The Holy Grail', and the English all love 'Life Of Brian', and I'm afraid on this one, I side with the English.

I love having different cultures around, but when the parent culture kind of dissipates, you're left thinking, 'Well, what's going on?'

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, and I think that is absolutely tragic - and I'm not exaggerating - that people feel like a decent, ordinary, fun life is no longer enough.

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

I have a tendency sometimes to get too logical with what I'm writing, just because I want it to be kind of perfect.

I don't understand why very, very rich people want to have even more money than they've already got.