John Cleese

The sad thing about true stupidity is that you can do absolutely nothing about it.

Terry Gilliam has spoken scathingly about my preference for physical comfort. I have come to the conclusion that this is very much his problem.

Why write about the past? Well, there's more of it.

Graham Chapman, co-author of the "Parrot Sketch", is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky. And I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries. And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste. (He paused, then claimed that Chapman had whipered in his ear while he was writing the speech):All right, Cleese. You say you're very proud of being the very first person ever to say 'shit' on British television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to become the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'.

Because, as we all know, it__ easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it__ also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we__e not so sure about._ _ John Cleese

It seemed as though he had a fundamental belief that the merit of his argument depended on the strength of his feelings about the matter, and since he always felt uncontrollably passionate about everything, then clearly he was always right. This irrational claptrap, coming as it did from a swarthy, excitable, plump Celtic demi-dwarf, struck me not just as thoroughly impertinent but also as a noisy and ignorant attempt to undermine the most basic principles of the Enlightenment.

The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people__ respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this __erfectionism_ is likely to stimulate the production of better work, it doesn__, unfortunately, go hand in hand with a relaxed and happy attitude to life.