[On John Cleese:] He sometimes seems to swat at his own thoughts as if they were bees.

jokes are ideally pleasurable. They are an act of assassination without a corpse, a moment of total annihilation that paradoxically makes anything possible.

Great comedy calls large matters into question.

Movies have now reached the same stage as sex - it's all technique and no feeling.

[On John Cleese:] He sometimes seems to swat at his own thoughts as if they were bees.

Funniness is the wild card in the pack.

The masters of the comic spirit are often our prophets.