Top 55 Christopher Guest Quotes

All these movies are observational comedies. I see somebody, maybe a dry cleaner, and notice how they are. Maybe I’ll decide to turn a person with those traits into a studio chief.

I read kind of serious books about fairly arcane subjects.

I love being with my family and just being a regular person.

I rarely joke unless I’m in front of a camera. It’s not what I am in real life. It’s what I do for a living.

I’m drawn as well to the lower echelons of things because it struck me a long time ago that it didn’t really matter on what level people were working on anything; it was just as important to them as the people working on what’s perceived as a higher level.

When you’ve been a character in a movie – and this has happened when we’ve done concerts as Spinal Tap or as The Folksmen – people see you as characters walking out of a movie. And you appear in public, then, to play, it’s a very schizophrenic thing.

People who take themselves too seriously, who can’t see anything else, are usually funny.

I think fans are so brought up in a culture of rooting for a team since they were kids, ostensibly, and are blind to this idea that people might take offense.

The fun part about doing our movies is that you’re creating something using the talents of people rather than finding these pathetic people who are thrust into these situations. That, to me, is completely artless.

People want me to be funny all the time. They think I’m being funny no matter what I say or do and that’s not the case.

I don’t read about myself, and I don’t read any magazine that has anything to do with movies or show business.

I’m married to the person I fell in love with.

The most important thing about my life is this integrity, and you can’t lie to yourself.

If you didn’t know who I was, if I was to walk out on the street without people knowing who I am, you’d think I’m an accountant or a lawyer.

There’s something about that idea of looking up and hoping, and thinking, ‘I’m good.’ Some things, like show business, are absolutely subjective. People look at a TV show and think, ‘I could do that.’ And maybe they could do that. But they’re not.

In the kind of films that I do, there is an extremely limited number of people that can improvise. The reason the ensemble continues in the movies is because those are the people that can do that kind of work. It’s not just an accident those people are in the film.

It couldn’t have been more nerdy or bizarre, playing the clarinet. But I studied classical clarinet, went to the high school for music and art in New York City, and then found the guitar and the mandolin after it.

I guess there’s something that’s appealing to me about people that are aspirational-slash-deluded.

Peter Sellers is my great comedy hero.

I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They’re so earnest about it. But that’s true of so many things.

You know it’s important to have a Jeep in Los Angeles. That front wheel drive is crucial when it starts to snow on Rodeo Drive.

The main thing that’s important to me is getting to do whatever project it is the way that I do what I do, and that’s different. To go to an entity – whether it’s a traditional film studio or some newer company, or HBO, Amazon or Netflix – they would have to know that I need to work the way I work.

It’s dangerous talking about comedy; it gets to be very tedious and presumptuous.

The movies have a way of seeping out there over time. We don’t put them in 2,000 theaters. It wouldn’t work that way.

I myself delve into very arcane things.

I’m a fly fisherman. I make flies. They’re imitations of insects at different stages in their development.

What’s interesting about Laurel and Hardy is that in most comedy teams, there’s a straight man, and then there’s the funny guy. And with Laurel and Hardy, they’re both the funny guy.

I love documentaries. My problem is when the filmmaker becomes the star.

I get asked, ‘Who would you really like to work with?’ I’m already working with them. Smart, talented, funny people, good musicians, an extended family, good friends.

I’m fascinated by real-time behavior.

‘Waiting For Guffman’ was different right away from ‘Spinal Tap,’ because we didn’t show the interviewer. That person became invisible immediately. That created a different way of tuning it and ultimately editing it.

I’ve been buying guitars since 1964, and you fool yourself into thinking it’s the last one.

You can pick almost any field, and there’s going to be weird people.

I don’t make movies that make fun of anything.

Most films, when you finish as an actor, you just go home.

I painted sets before I ever performed.

I don’t read anything about my movies before or after I do films, or any part of show business. I think that keeps me in a kind of place where I can do the work that I need to do.

The reason I work with the same people, it’s not just an accident.

You know when you’re young, you have this unbelievable stupidity and arrogance and ignorance all mixed in?

I like to play music, and I like to be funny, so I just do both at the same time.

I was never in an improv group. But when I went to school, we would do it all day long with friends, not knowing what it was called.

I would make a huge distinction between theater improvisation and film improvisation.

My passion is more specific, in the sense that I’ve always liked doing comedy. I’ve always liked doing music. I like acting. And apparently, you need those things in movies.

People ask me, ‘What’s your next film?’ And I never know.

Folk musicians have a lot of the same self-importance, but they’re way more cruel and jealous than rock musicians – I know this for a fact because I used to be a folk musician.

I’ve never seen a reality show. I don’t watch television.

The minute the money is more, you lose your control, so then there’s no point.

As an actor, I trust my ear.

It’s difficult to articulate how I know it’s the right actor, but I do. It’s instinct. Intuition.

I spent a lot of time in London when I was growing up and I’ve always picked up accents without even really meaning to. It used to get me into trouble as a child.

I talk to people of different ages, and a guy who’s 38 who says, ‘I could’ve played Major League Baseball, but I had this knee injury…’ Yeah, probably not. It’s a big thing with men and sports, where they think they could have touched that thing.

I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers, who is still probably my favourite comedian.

I watch mostly documentaries and things that aren’t remotely funny.

I’ve been fortunate. I get to write films. I get to write music in films. I get to play arenas wearing a wig.

Mean doesn’t last. Mean is over fast. Maybe this is the essence of everything, which is, to me, if there is no emotional center for what I’m doing, I have no interest in it at all.