A Quote by John Cleese

It's too difficult to start right from scratch and try and be funny out of the blue. — © John Cleese
It's too difficult to start right from scratch and try and be funny out of the blue.
When I try to be funny, it always makes me more nervous that I'm trying too hard, and then my brain that already thinks too much jumps into hyper drive, and I light-speed start talking 'Star Trek' to someone who's talking 'Star Wars.' Anyway, it doesn't work out usually when I 'try' to be funny.
I try not to match too much. You know, if there's a blue coat and a blue shirt and a blue tie, I try to stay away from that. I'd rather have a blue coat and a yellow shirt and a pink tie. I don't like to look too matching. You know those mismatched socks kids wear? That's my idea of a good suit.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky - or the answer is wrong and you have to start over and try again and see how it comes out this time.
What a director is looking for is someone who will follow you and no matter what. And if you ask for blue, he's gonna try blue. And if you say, give me a piece of red with it, and they try. And you don't mind so much if it's difficult to get the blue and the red together. As long as they try. And as long as they give everything they can to give you what you want. That's what I'm looking for.
Usually I work out the plot before I start. This time I thought: Writers always talk about not knowing where a book is going - -I want to experience that, too. What I found out is that it's very interesting, but it takes much longer because you have so many false starts. You take wrong turns and you have to go back and start the whole chapter, or the whole section, from scratch.
I love writing novels, but I'm very fearful about writing something from absolute scratch. I kind of don't have the time to write something from scratch. I think when my knees completely give out, and I can't make films anymore, I would try to write novels from scratch.
You don't have to start from scratch to do something interesting. You don't have to start from scratch to have a massive impact on the world. You have to have a good idea. You have to convince other people of those good ideas. And you have to push as quickly as possible.
We got a right to climb out of the sewer and live like other people. We could start from scratch. Make every minute count twice for the one we lost.
Now we may have more preachers out there than we have drinkers. But a fellow told me a story one time about a man down in Kentuckywhere they make bourbon. And he said you can take a jigger or two jiggers and get by all right. But if you try to take the whole bottle why you have lost what you started with. So don't try to take it too quick. And don't try to do all of it at once. I don't do much promising. I tell what my goals are and then I try to wrap it up and put a blue ribbon on it and get it delivered. We say put the coonskin on the wall.
I think if you have a funny thought, and you want to get off a funny point, try to do it as realistically as you can. If you try to act it funny and accent the funny points, or do it in a funny style, you kind of lose it.
I'm sad and blue, about nobody but you. I told you that I loved you right from the start, you told me the same and now you try to break my little heart.
Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again.
There's things in my swing that get bad that we try to change, but we can't just remorph everything and start from scratch.
He would like to start from scratch. Where is scratch?
You just can't take yourself too seriously, especially in comedy. You shouldn't try to be funny, but you should try to be as honest as possible. The extreme end of honesty is usually what's funny. That's your job [as an actor]. You just have to let people see it.
In other words, they decided right from the start that there's no God, and they're setting out to try to prove that there's no God, ... That's their bias to start with.
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