My Life In Quotes: John Cleese

She's the love child of Bernie Madoff and Heather Mills.

ON BASIL FAWLTY

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

ON AGEING

You do realise as you get older that almost nobody knows what they're talking about.

ON REPRODUCTION

I don't think anyone should be educated sexually. There are far too many people on the planet. If we could hush it up for a few years, that would help.

ON MORTALITY

I rather liked that bit in Meaning Of Life, where a guy was executed by being chased over the edge of a cliff by naked women. If I had to go, I'd prefer it to be something like that.

ON AUDITIONING

They used to say, 'Get me John Cleese.' Now, they say, 'Get me a John Cleese type. Someone who's like him, but much easier to work with. And not likely to go to sleep after 13 hours'.

ON COMEDY

Comedy always works best when it is mean-spirited.

ON PLAYING THE LEAD

Who's ever going to write a film in which I get the girl? Me!

ON MODERN LIFE

Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress engineers, and they come with instruction booklets written by engineers for other engineers – which is why almost no technology ever works.

John Cleese's Alimony Tour comes to Edinburgh on 10 June (www.festivaltheatre.co.uk)

• This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, June 6, 2010