John Cleese Quotes

I never had the confidence to say I was going to be in front of the camera as a comedian until I saw Eddie Murphy years later.

Being tall is very good for reaching high shelves and seeing in a crowd. Sadly, it has also given me the inability to dance. There's too much of me to look neat, which is most disappointing.

I first wanted to be a comedian when I was six or seven and my dad showed me Laurel and Hardy's "Perfect Day" on tv.

I'm friends with a lot of comedians, but we don't talk about material. Most comedians I know don't watch a lot of other comedy.

I've got such effeminate hands. I could never be strong. Whenever I even got to a save, my fingers would just bend back and the ball would hit me in the face.

I'm a huge fan of Jonathan Winters. He's influenced everyone who's ever done improvisational comedy. You look to Jonathan Winters for inspiration. He paved the way. If you've ever made up something on the spot and made somebody laugh, you can credit Jonathan Winters with inspiration.

Just from my own experience, a lot of the comedians I used to work with were miserable in their actual lives. I think you need to be able to see a lot of negative in things in order to extract material, so there's probably something to that. A lot of the people I used to work with were very, very, very unfunny offstage, so that's a pretty common thing.

There's so much myth and baloney. Like a 80-year-old man able to manhandle a 300-pounder with his little finger. Ridiculous. Or this matter of breaking bricks and boards wth the edge of your hand. Now I ask you, did you ever see a brick or a board pick a fight with anybody?

Zombies will try to scale any surface no matter how unfeasable or even impossible. In all but the easiest situations, these attempts have met with failure. Even in the case of ladders, when simple hand-over-hand coordination is required, only one in four zombies will succeed.

Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.

I kind of was raised at The Comedy Store by comedians. When you see my dad on stage before me and then you see me, you'll see where I got a lot of my stuff.

The duty of labor is written on a man's body: in the stout muscle of the arm,, and the delicate machinery of the hand.

No man's body is as strong as his appetites, but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strength and contracting his capacities.

Every girl - and boy, if you so choose - should take some ballet. Because ballet gives you grace. It gives you [the ability] to work with your hands. It's all about your hands.

I'm a really athletic person - I'm not that coordinated, but I'm really athletic, so I would play a superhero doing my own stunts in a heartbeat. But hopefully not taking swings at people. That's not a good idea for me.

A certain type of critic doesn't really want French movies to be visual. They think movies started from books and they forgot this part of moviemaking, like Chaplin and Buster Keaton, which I didn't forget.

Lily Tomlin...I used to watch reruns of Laugh-In and she was always my favorite part. She's this very unique talent and the way she does things has been a very big influence on me.

Every habit makes our hand more witty and our wit less handy.

Enthusiasm is like having two right hands.

I really will never understand pushing back on comedians who are like, "I'm like a politician campaigning and shaking hands with these people. They're going to be okay."

The aging process is fascinating because it doesn't disturb me, because this is what it is supposed to be like. But I'll tell you what does - it's the lack of strength - you can't hold up suitcases and do it yourself. Loss of physical strength.

I'm not a natural comedian, as an artist. I studied comedy growing up. I would watch Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, all day.

The body is what reminds us on a daily basis that we're human. The body defies us, it betrays us, we have to struggle with it, you know. And it reveals in curious and in abiding ways how we are not perfect.

The things that stop you having sex with age are exactly the same as those that stop you riding a bicycle.

When I was 17, I read a profile of Carol Leifer. Since then, I wanted to be her. I still want to be her.