John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleeseis an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth27 October 1939
holy-grail done rhetorical-question
What have the Romans ever done for us?
television witch exciting
There's nothing good on the television; let's burn a witch. It must have been terribly exciting to live in those times.
significance
The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.
laughter creativity medicine
Laughter is the best creative medicine.
writing reality people
Naturally, people's image is of a performer, but the reality of it is the writing for me has always been the most important thing and the most rewarding thing.
writing circles important
The writing is the most important bit, and performing it is just closing the circle because I'm less likely to screw it up than anyone else.
down-and months mets
You go in and meet the head of BBC One and get an assurance about not dumbing down. And then, of course a few months later, he's been replaced by someone you haven't met.
enthusiastic hyperbole
The Americans are just more enthusiastic and more likely to engage in hyperbole.
energy
Always start where the energy is.
laughter people division
Laughter destroys any divisions between people.
bored
I get bored easily. I've been bored most of my life.
horse data water
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him enter regional distribution codes in data field 97 to facilitate regression analysis on the back end.
teaching followers absurd
What is absurd is not the teachings of the founders of religion, it's what followers subsequently make of it.
laughter cutting people
I started to make harder jokes before anyone else did. And the producers would get anxious. They'd say, 'That's a little bit hard-edged, isn't it?' And I'd say, 'Let's just try it and see how the audience reacts. If they don't like it, let's cut it out.' And the audience roared with laughter, so I learned you could do this harder humor and people loved it.