If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas
John CleeseRead
Well, the only way I can get a leading-man role is if I write it.
Interpretation
Take control of your opportunities by creating them yourself.
John Cleese's quote reflects the notion that sometimes, in order to achieve our desires and ambitions, we must take initiative and create our own opportunities rather than waiting for them to be handed to us. It highlights the empowerment that comes from being proactive and resourceful in pursuit of success.
In practice
In a motivational speech to aspiring writers, someone could use this quote to encourage them to create their own paths.
If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you open to my ideas
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.
If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time to be considering alternative strategies.
In Britain, girls seem to be either bright or attractive. In America, that's not the case. They're both.
I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.
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.
It's important to learn from your mistakes, but it is BETTER to learn from other people's mistakes, and it is BEST to learn from other people's successes. It accelerates your own success.
That's a pretty big advantage to this journey that I've been able to have, is that I was able to start at such a young age because my father built a setup and I was able to build a technique from 3 years up to now. Without the backyard, I'm not whatever I am today. I knew that none of my classmates were pole vaulting.
I never took a position we were going to be a good ball club. I took the position we were going to be a winning ball club.
When people ask me, ‘how do you make it in show business,’ or whatever, what I always tell them — and nobody ever takes note of it ‘cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear…but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’
The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.
It's good to test yourself and develop your talents and ambitions as fully as you can and achieve greater success; but I think success is the feeling you get from a job well done, and the key thing is to do the work.
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