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John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English comedian and actor best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for co-writing the TV series Fawlty Towers in which he played Basil Fawlty.

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  • Six hundred years ago we would have been burned for this. Now, what I'm suggesting is that we've advanced.
    • Defending the film Life of Brian on BBC chat show Friday Night Saturday Morning (9 November 1979)

  • If I like chocolate it won't surprise you that I have a few chocolates in my fridge, but if you find out I've got 16 warehouses full of chocolate, you'd think I was insane. All these rich guys are insane, obsessive compulsive twits obsessed with money — money is all they think about — they're all nuts.
    • On Fresh Air with Terry Gross, promoting Fierce Creatures, which Cleese says is a satire about Rupert Murdoch's greed. (1997)

  • Basil Fawlty was an easy character for me. For some reason, portraying a mean uptight incompetent bully comes naturally to me.
    • On Fresh Air with Terry Gross (1997)

  • If I had not gone into Monty Python, I probably would have stuck to my original plan to graduate and become a chartered accountant, perhaps a barrister lawyer, and gotten a nice house in the suburbs, with a nice wife and kids, and gotten a country club membership, and then I would have killed myself.
    • On Fresh Air with Terry Gross (1997)

  • He who laughs most, learns best.
    • As quoted in Creating Emotionally Safe Schools : A Guide for Educators and Parents‎ (2001) by Jane Bluestein, p. 215

  • If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
    • As quoted in Best New Games (2002) by Dale N. LeFevre, p. 9

  • Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers — which is why almost no technology ever works.

  • If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?
    • As quoted in W.T.F.? : (What Is Wrong With Tom Faerie?)‎ (2006) by H. M. Leathem

  • Cleese: You see, you could never do a sketch like that these days. The audience is too uninformed. I blame the Americans. Nation of obese, violent, pig-ignorant, bible-thumping morons contaminating world culture. That’s why I spend most of my time here in France. ... Beautiful, isn’t it? Just look at those olive trees. [Interviewer: This is Santa Barbara.]
    • From PBS series Monty Python's Personal Best : John Cleese's Personal Best (2006), playing role of senile old man.

  • Cleese: My biggest regret? Not being knighted by the Queen. I should have been a knight, and I would have been knighted, if I hadn't written one horrible horrible Python sketch which I deeply deeply regret — [cue Python sketch: UPPER CLASS TWIT OF THE YEAR]
    • From PBS series Monty Python's Personal Best : John Cleese's Personal Best (2006), playing role of senile old man.

  • When you get to my age, and I'm 66 now, you realize that the world is a madhouse and that most people are operating in fantasy anyway. So once you realise that, it doesn't bother you much.
    • From Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian (2007)

  • Because these people are operating at a very very low level of mental health, they are incapable of understanding the teaching.
    • From Channel 4 documentary The Secret Life of Brian (2007)

 
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