John Cleese Quotes by Penelope Gilliatt

Rosalia is dressed in raven clothes forty years too old for her, so that she seems to be in mourning for her life.

— Penelope Gilliatt

The masters of the comic spirit are often our prophets.

— Penelope Gilliatt

Funniness is the wild card in the pack.

— Penelope Gilliatt

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

— Penelope Gilliatt

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

— Penelope Gilliatt

People in a temper often say a lot of silly, terrible things they mean.

— Penelope Gilliatt

[On Watermelon Man:] ... it is impossible to look at this film without its giving you a share in its insane bad taste, which…

— Penelope Gilliatt

Prague is like a vertical Venice steps everywhere.

— Penelope Gilliatt

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

— Penelope Gilliatt

Why is it that beautiful women never seem to have curiosity? Is it because they know they're classical? With classical things the Lord finished…

— Penelope Gilliatt

Great comedy calls large matters into question.

— Penelope Gilliatt

Black and white are the most ravishing colors of all in film.

— Penelope Gilliatt

A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit's conjecture is to endanger the species.

— Penelope Gilliatt

It [humor] inhabits the marginal.

— Penelope Gilliatt