John Cleese Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More John Cleese quote about:
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“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”
-- John Cleese -
“The real religion is about the understanding that if we can only still our egos for a few seconds, we might have a chance of experiencing something that is divine in nature. But in order to do that, we have to slice away at our egos and try to get them down to a manageable size, and then still work some practiced light meditation. So real religion is about reducing our egos, whereas all the churches are interested in is egotistical activities, like getting as many members and raising as much money and becoming as important and high-profile and influential as possible.”
-- John Cleese -
“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.”
-- John Cleese -
“You can't make Christ funny. He's self-aware, he's too flexible within the situation. It's rigidity, it's when the ego takes over and the behavior becomes inappropriate that it becomes funny.”
-- John Cleese -
“If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?”
-- John Cleese -
“I have a tendency sometimes to get too logical with what I'm writing, just because I want it to be kind of perfect.”
-- John Cleese -
“The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.”
-- John Cleese -
“When you've only got few days of rehearsal before you're in the studio, it's wonderful to start off with people that you have good, friendly, tolerable relationships to start with, for the simple reason that you don't have to spend 24 hours figuring out how sensitive they are, and can you give them a line reading, or how do you have to give them direction.”
-- John Cleese -
“The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen, the feeling that whatever happens, it's okay... you're either free to play, or you're not.”
-- John Cleese -
“On movies, I like to involve the cast in the writing of the script. I like to have a rehearsal period, after which I do the last draft, which gives me a chance to incorporate anything the actors have come up with during the rehearsal period, so I'm very inclusive as a writer.”
-- John Cleese -
“I think that money spoils most things, once it becomes the primary motivating force.”
-- John Cleese -
“British press think entirely in clichés, and when they do come across creative work, they think that it must be based on something, because they don't realize that you can create things that aren't based on things.”
-- John Cleese -
“The English contribution to world cuisine - the chip.”
-- John Cleese -
“What I've always wanted to do is be as funny as possible.”
-- John Cleese -
“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.”
-- John Cleese -
“No hope for planet at all. But I will be gone before the planet is gone, so it's your problem.”
-- John Cleese -
“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 the hard thing for young comedians is that the majority of the young people in the audience out there don't have the wide range of references.”
-- 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 -
“It's too difficult to start right from scratch and try and be funny out of the blue.”
-- John Cleese -
“A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.”
-- John Cleese -
“Everything in comedy's got to be exactly right, which is why making a comedic film is kind of a difficult process, because, for most of the two years of shooting it and editing it and reshooting and all of that, it's not quite right. And it's only when you just at the end, you put the final polish on it, it becomes really funny again.”
-- 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 -
“Sci-fi has never really been my bag. But I do believe in a lot of weird things these days, such as synchronicity. Quantum physics suggests it's possible, so why not?”
-- 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 -
“We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.”
-- John Cleese -
“I think we're all born with a sense of humor. Creativity is another thing though.”
-- John Cleese -
“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.”
-- John Cleese -
“We all die at the end, but does that nullify everything? Would most people rather say, "I wish I hadn't been born?" Once you're born you'll have to die, now is that funny or sad?”
-- John Cleese -
“It’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve.”
-- John Cleese
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