John Cleese

From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.

It’s like telling Michelangelo: ‘I know you painted this dope angel, that was really good, but Michelangelo, I don’t think you can paint a cow.’

I’m terribly intuitive-I always thought I was intellectual about what I do, but I’ve come to the realization that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing half the time.

Art is self expression. If you are expressing someone else’s personality, that is not art.

To this day I’m really not sure if I was playing Ziggy [Stardust] or if Ziggy was exaggerated aspects of my own personality. A fair amount of psychological baggage was undoubtedly coming out through the character. Because I felt awkward and nervous and inadequate with myself, it felt easier to be somebody else.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

There is no art without intention.

Bad artists imitate, great artists steal.

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

I cry out for order and find it only in art.

I hope the Guggenheim plan will be revived.

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

MoMA is doubling its space, and I decided to raise the money for it.

It is unquestionably true that the need for art is not created by economic conditions. But neither is the need for food created by economics. On the contrary, the need for food and warmth creates economics.

There is nothing new… everything has roots in the past.