John Cleese Quotes

I remember seeing Eddie Murphy RAW and seeing people laughing and having a good time and that was the same response I was getting so I thought I was on to something.

The only reaction that frightens me is people not laughing. It's extraordinary to me when you get a laugh. That you can go in front of a bunch of people you never met before, you can say some stuff and they all laugh in unison - that's amazing. It's a miracle.

I don't know what's funny and what's not so I test out all of my material in front of audiences.

For certain things, certain audiences, people will laugh. And in other places, there's dead silence. And I enjoy them both. You try to make films where it's never one way - like life.

You live through the play at 8 o'clock, straight through, and nobody can call "Cut!" But also with the stage you're getting instant reactions. You hear people snoring in the audience, and bored to tears, or sometimes you hear the laughter, and you can hear them listening.

I've been in a few movies that really have the tendency to polarize people, and I kind of like that. I kind of like anything that pushes people's buttons. People will always take things as they want, and project stuff on it - it's just kind of what people do. Whether it's violence or teen pregnancy, whatever.

Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh.

More and more, I find that I love doing comedies; that instant gratification that you get on stage when they laugh at you feels really good.

You can play a gig as a band and not know that they hated you; with standup, after every line, you know.

There was laughter in the back of the theater, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there.

The safest genre is the horror film. But the most unsafe - the most dangerous - is comedy. Because even if your horror film isn't very good, you'll get a few screams and you're okay. With a comedy, if they don't laugh, you're dead.

I've always liked being funny and making people laugh. I was a cut-up when I was a kid, and was always doing bits for my friends and family.

The one [The Beverly Hillbillies] flaw in this is that you can't hear the people laughing.

In an odd way, my parents were proud of me. When they saw me do stand-up, I'd see them looking around the room and watch them taking in the people laughing. On some level, that comforted them.

A rule of thumb with humor; if you worry that you might be going too far, you have already not gone far enough. If everybody laughs, you have failed.

You start to find a rhythm and usually if it makes me laugh or comment in the editing room then I knew that's what's going to happen in the audience. That first reaction is usually the right reaction.

The first time I got on stage I was 10 years old and I did impressions. I did cartoon characters and I really got the bug for this life when I saw that people were laughing and saw the attention I was getting.

I want people to say, "Oh my God, I'm laughing out loud at television."

It's quite easy to make a load of people laugh, it's often a reflex action, but I think to make them cry is harder without manipulating them.

When you make comedy, you make it for the people and you try to have as many screenings and as many tests and you do focus groups and you read the cards and you try to give the people what they want in this comedy.

What I love about comedians is their instinct is always to go against the grain. Their whole existence is pointing out the elephant in the room. Already you can see audiences are pushing back, but we're the ones who really can take it more than anybody.

There is nothing that's off limits. If people think something is off limits, I make it my business to go make a joke about it; that's my job.

To me, the stories that have always intrigued me are the stories of people leaving my movies and being affected by them. They walk home 20 blocks the wrong way. Or they lock themselves in their office. Or they find themselves weeping when in the shower after the film. And those intrigue me, because I know I've touched something inside them.

I started out in stand-up, so it's very satisfying to make people laugh, but it usually means at your own expense.

I have noticed that in plays where the characters on stage laugh a great deal, the people out front laugh very little.