Quotes By 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

In Britain, girls seem to be either bright or attractive. In America, that's not the case. They're both.

Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.

I think it's because in America you always get the sense that if you fail, you can just pack up your things and go somewhere else and try again. But in England, it's so geographically small that if somebody succeeds here, it reduces your chances of succeeding.

I had a very, very difficult relationship with my mother, who was supremely self-centred. She was hilariously self-centred. She did not really take interest in anything that didn't immediately affect her.

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

The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.

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.

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

The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip.

I don't miss London much. I find it crowded, vast and difficult to get around. Cabs are incredibly expensive.

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.

Michael Palin decided to give up on his considerable comedy talents to make those dreadfully tedious travel shows. Have you ever tried to watch one?

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.

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.

Well, the only way I can get a leading-man role is if I write it.

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.

Most of the bad taste I've been accused of has been generic bad taste; it's been making fun of an idea as opposed to a person.

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

England is a fairly envious little country and it's embodied in the press. They don't like anyone being more distinguished than they are.

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.

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

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

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