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Because, As We All Know, It’s Easier To Do Trivial Things That Are Urgent Than It Is To Do Important Things That Are Not Urgent, Like Thinking. And It’s Also Easier To Do Little Things We Know We Can Do Than To Start On Big Things That We’re Not So Sure About.

-John Cleese

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Because, As We All

John Cleese

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Because, As We All Know, It’s Easier To Do Trivial Things That Are Urgent Than It Is To Do Important Things That Are Not Urgent, Like Thinking. And It’s Also Easier To Do Little Things We Know We Can Do Than To Start On Big Things That We’re Not So Sure About.

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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.

I'm Very Odd 'cause I Think There's More Than Just A Materialist Planet, A Materialist, Reductionist Planet.

In Britain, Girls Seem To Be Either Bright Or Attractive. In America, That's Not The Case. They're Both.

Sense Of Humor Is So Much More Subjective Than Anyone Believes.

Telling People How To Be Creative Is Easy - Being Creative Is Difficult.

I Was Always A Sports Nut But I've Lost Interest Now In Whether One Bunch Of Mercenaries In North London Is Going To Beat Another Bunch Of Mercenaries From West London.

If I Can Get You To Laugh With Me, You Like Me Better, Which Makes You Open To My Ideas

It Seems Astounding To Me Now That The Video Games Are Perhaps As Important As The Movie Themselves. And People Will Spend 2 Or 3 Years Obsessing About The Video Game In Exactly The Same Way That They'd Be Obsessing About The Movie If They Were Working On That.

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 And Then, Of Course A Few Months Later, He's Been Replaced By Someone You Haven't Met.

It's Too Difficult To Start Right From Scratch And Try And Be Funny Out Of The Blue.

I Love Having Different Cultures Around, But When The Parent Culture Kind Of Dissipates, You're Left Thinking, 'well, What's Going On?'

The Main Evolutionary Significance Of Humor Is That It Gets Us From The Closed Mode To The Open Mode Quicker Than Anything Else.

I Want To Write A Book Which Is The History Of Comedy.

I Wish You Wusses Would Stop Whining About Your Unhappiness. I'm Really Fed Up With It. Pour Yourself A Scotch And Pull Yourself Together. Go Out And Shoot Something!

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.

You Don't Have To Be The Dalai Lama To Tell People That Life's About Change.

Ask Yourself, "when Does This Decision Have To Be Taken?" And Having Answered It, Defer The Decision Until Then, In Order To Give Yourself Maximum Pondering Time.

A Man Will Give Up Almost Anything Except His Suffering.

Once We've Made A Decision, We Are Efficient Only If We Go Through With It Decisively, Undistracted By Doubts About Its Correctness.

For Those Wondering How To Deal With Anxiety And Depression, The First Thing To Consider Is What You're Putting Into Your Mouth.

Basil Fawlty Was An Easy Character For Me. For Some Reason, Portraying A Mean, Uptight, Incompetent Bully Comes Naturally To Me.

Muslims, Who Have A Completely Different Value System, Come To The West, Then They Should Accept That There Are Certain Basic Values In The West Intrinsic To Our Culture. Just As I Wouldn't Suggest That Any Westerner Walk Down The Streets Of Saudi Arabia In A Bikini.

Don't Let Anyone Tell You What You Ought To Like.

God Was Treated Like This Powerful, Erratic, Rather Punitive Father Who Has To Be Pacified And Praised. You Know, Flattered.

I've Always Called Myself A Writer/performer, Not An Actor Because I Basically Write What I Perform.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

There's Something About Watching An Animal That Puts You In Contact With Where We Came From And What We're Still A Part Of.

To Be Creative You Must Create A Space For Yourself Where You Can Be Undisturbed... Separate From Everyday Concerns.

If You Really Don't Know Where To Start Or If You're Stuck, Start Generating Random Connections And Allow Your Intuition To Tell You If One Might Lead Somewhere Interesting.

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?

The Great Thing About Florida Is You - Each City's About Two Hours' Drive From Everywhere Else.

When The Target Audience Is American Teenage Kids, You Can Have Problems. My Generation Prized Really Fine Acting And Writing. Sometimes You Have To Go Back To The Basic Principles Which Underpin Great Visual Comedy.

Laughter Destroys Any Divisions Between People.

Come To Me. I Want To Plow You Like A Calgary Driveway At Christmas.

We Need To Be In The Open Mode When We Are Pondering A Problem, But, Once We Come Up With A Solution, We Must Then Switch To The Closed Mode To Implement It.

What I've Always Wanted To Do Is Be As Funny As Possible.

When We Hold A World Championship For A Particular Sport, We Invite Teams From Other Countries To Play As Well.

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.

I Think The Problem With People Like This Is That They Are So Stupid That They Have No Idea How Stupid They Are.

I Was A Terrible Dancer. I Dance Like An Englishman.

Because, As We All Know, It’s Easier To Do Trivial Things That Are Urgent Than It Is To Do Important Things That Are Not Urgent, Like Thinking. And It’s Also Easier To Do Little Things We Know We Can Do Than To Start On Big Things That We’re Not So Sure About.

A Lot Of Humour Is About Just Enjoying Life And Spontaneity And Because You Make A Joke That Puts Somebody Down - We're Always Teasing Each Other. It's With Affection. It's Nasty Teasing That We - Not All Teasing; Nasty Teasing You Cut Out.

I Think That 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.

That's A Lovely Experience When You Make An Audience Laugh. Then The Nerves Go Away For A Bit. And Sometimes You Do Things Then That You've Never Done Before That Are Really Funny.

What's The Bleedin' Point?

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.

Aping Urbanity, Oozing With Vanity, Plump As A Manatee, Faking Humanity, Intellectual Inanity, Journalistic Calamity, Fox Noise Insanity, You're A Profanity, Hannity.

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.

It's A Plastic Surgeon You Need, Not A Doctor

When I Was A Child And I Was Upset About Something, My Mother Was Not Capable Of Containing That Emotion, Of Letting Me Be Upset But Reassuring Me, Of Just Being With Me In A Calming Way. She Always Got In A Flap, So I Not Only Had My Own Baby Panics, Fears And Terrors To Deal With, But I Had To Cope With Hers, Too. Eventually I Taught Myself To Remain Calm When I Was Panicked, In Order Not To Upset Her. In A Way, She Had Managed To Put Me In Charge Of Her. At 18 Months Old, I Was Doing The Parenting.

When I Was In School, I Was Beaten Every 30 Minutes. It Never Did Me Any Harm Except For Some Psychological Mal-adjustments And Blurred Vision.

Filming Is Like A Long Air Journey: There's So Much Hanging Around And Boredom That They Keep Giving You Food.

The Most Creative People Have Learned To Tolerate The Slight Discomfort Of Indecision For Much Longer And So, Just Because They Put In More Pondering Time, Their Solutions Are More Creative.

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.

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.

The Americans Are Just More Enthusiastic And More Likely To Engage In Hyperbole.

Either People Walk Round Dressed As Chickens Or They Listen To Beethoven.

I Think You Can Write Very Good Comedy Without A Partner, But What I Love About It, Working With A Partner, Is That You Get To Places You'd Never Get On Your Own. It's Like When God Was Designing The World And Decided We Couldn't Have Children Without A Partner; It Was A Way Of Mixing Up The Genes So You'd Get A More Interesting Product.

I Get Bored Easily. I've Been Bored Most Of My Life.

I Don't Understand Why Very, Very Rich People Want To Have Even More Money Than They've Already Got.

If You Want Creative Workers, Give Them Enough Time To Play.

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.

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If You Wish To Kill Yourself But Lack The Courage To, I Think A Visit To Palmerston North Will Do The Trick.

I Think That I Feel An Indignation When I Don't Understand Something.

There Are 3 Basic Differences Between We British And You Americans. One, We Speak English, And You Don't. Two, When We Have A "world Championship", We Invite Teams From Other Nations. Three, When You Meet The British Head Of State, You Only Have To Get Down On One Knee.

I've Always Found Life Quite Difficult To Explain To People Or To Myself.

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Bad In The World

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My Views Are Heretical To People Who Believe In Political Correctness.

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The Sad Thing About True Stupidity Is That You Can Do Absolutely Nothing About It.

Absolutely Nothing

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Other People, You Know, Put A Latex Rubber On, You Know, To Become Sexually Excited. There's So Much I Don't Understand.

Why Write About The Past? Well, There's More Of It.

A Satisfied Customer. We Should Have Him Stuffed.

If You Want To Know Who Your Friends Are, Have A Major Failure.

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My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels.

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Tension Is Wonderful For Making People Laugh.

The Most Creative People Have This Childlike Facility To Play.

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I'm Not Sure What's Going On In Britain. I Don't Know What's Going On In London. Because London Is No Longer An English City, And That's How They Got The Olympics. I Mean, They Said, "we're The Most Cosmopolitan City On Earth," But It Doesn't Feel English.

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The Americans Are So Much More Positive. They Are Much More In Love With Success. In Britain, They're A Fairly Envious Bunch, And They Love It If You Fail.

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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.

The Thrill I Got Discovering Buster Keaton When I Was Growing Up Was So Exciting. He Was One Of The Greats.

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Bureaucrats Shouldn't Be In Charge Of Comedy.

When You've Been Doing Comedy For Forty Years, You Really Do Know Most Of The Jokes. And Even If You Don't Know A Specific Joke, You Can Pretty Much Guess What It's Going To Be.

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The One Thing I Remember About Christmas Was That My Father Used To Take Me Out In A Boat About Ten Miles Offshore On Christmas Day, And I Used To Have To Swim Back. Extraordinary. It Was A Ritual. Mind You, That Wasn't The Hard Part. The Difficult Bit Was Getting Out Of The Sack.

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I Find The Alexander Technique Very Helpful In My Work. Things Happen Without You Trying. They Get To Be Light And Relaxed. You Must Get An Alexander Teacher To Show It To You.

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I Could Take An Umbrella And Balance It On My Chin Or On My Foot. And I Just Got Interested In That Kind Of Thing. And As I Played Games More And More And Got Stronger Physically, I Just Became More Coordinated.

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Your Mother Was A Hamster And You Father Smelled Of Elder Berries.

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I Would Like To Do My Own Eulogy, And Then Shoot Myself And Then Get In The Coffin.

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I Don't Want To Hurt People.

I Have Several Times Made A Poor Choice By Avoiding A Necessary Confrontation.

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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.

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Students Who Laugh More- Learn More. Students Who Laugh More Earn More.

I Can Never Do Better Than 'fawlty Towers,' Whatever I Do. Now I Very Much Want To Teach Young Talent Some Rules Of The Game.

Yes It's Her Husband. She Hasn't Got Over It. Died Thirty Years Ago.

This Is The Extraordinary Thing About Creativity: If Just You Keep Your Mind Resting Against The Subject In A Friendly But Persistent Way, Sooner Or Later You Will Get A Reward From Your Unconscious.

What Is Absurd Is Not The Teachings Of The Founders Of Religion, It's What Followers Subsequently Make Of It.

When You Do Comedy In Front Of An Audience, They Are The Ones Who Tell You Whether It's Funny Or Not And Which Bits Are Funny And Which Bits Need To Be Fixed.

The Trouble With The British Is That They Are Not Interested In Ideas. If Jesus Came Back Today And Offered To Speak For An Hour On British Television, They Would Say, "what! Another Talking Head?

I'm Always Meeting New People, And My List Of Friends Seems To Change Quite A Bit.

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.

Creativity Is Not An Ability That You Either Have Or Do Not Have. It Is, For Example, And This May Surprise You, Absolutely Unrelated To Iq, Provided You're Intelligent Above A Certain Minimal Level.

Give Your Mind As Long As Possible To Come Up With Something Original.

No Hope For Planet At All. But I Will Be Gone Before The Planet Is Gone, So It's Your Problem.

Creativity Is Not A Talent. It Is A Way Of Operating.

By Watching The Great, Old Comedians I Picked Up A Few Tricks About How To Do Physical Comedy. And Whenever I Could Learn Something, I Sort Of Added That To My Repertoire.

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