Terry Jones Quotes

Lady Chesney was a tolerant soul. She tolerated the lowly people who jammed her sitting room at these meetings. She tolerated the off-the-peg clothes they wore. She tolerated their accents and the way they had to work for a living. She was even willing to shake hands with one or two of them, if they seemed important enough. Were any of them as grateful as they should have been? She doubted it.

I can direct things but I can't write. My memory is going, so I struggle for words.

What really alarms me about President Bush's 'War on Terrorism' is the grammar. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? How is 'Terrorism' going to surrender? It's well known, in philological circles, that it's very hard for abstract nouns to surrender.

I'm a good cook; one of my specialities is reindeer and potato pie.

Sarah: That's not fair!
Jareth: You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?

It took 200 years for the Crusaders to create [this] Muslim fanaticism. It was the exact imitation of Christian intolerance.

Fatherhood is wonderful.

Medieval learning was really advanced.

I don't think people who have children are acting selfishly or unselfishly. Having a child who'll be loved, to parents who love each other, is the important thing.

The funny thing about history is that we imagine that people didn't laugh in the old days, but of course they did, at stupid things.

We think of medieval England as being a place of unbelievable cruelty and darkness and superstition. We think of it as all being about fair maidens in castles, and witch-burning, and a belief that the world was flat. Yet all these things are wrong.

I've got a soft spot for Theatr Colwyn because my granddad used to run the Colwyn amateur dramatic society in the 1930s.

It doesn't worry me what anyone says, except when publicity hurts others.

I'd like something that peels potatoes really quickly - that would be wonderful.

Ludicrous concepts ... like the whole idea of a war on terrorism. You can wage war against another country, or on a national group within your own country, but you can't wage war on an abstract noun. How do you know when you've won? When you've got it removed from the Oxford English Dictionary?

We will definitely not burn the Koran, no. Not today, not ever.

I'm cheerfully optimistic about life. Optimism is very important!

Short or long to Goblin City?
The straight way's short
But the long way's pretty ...

Why do I feel so exercised about what we think of the people of the Middle Ages? ... I guess it's because so many of their voices are ringing vibrantly in my ears - Chaucer's, Boccaccio's, Henry Knighton's, Thomas Walsingham's, Froissart's, Jean Creton's ... writers and contemporary historians of the period who seem to me just as individual, just as alive as we are today. We need to get to know these folk better in order to know who we are ourselves.

You know, I've never thought of myself as a comedian.

Some people are passionate about aisles, others about window seats.

I spent my earliest years in Colwyn Bay in north Wales with my mother and grandmother, while my father was stationed with the RAF in India.

I like my stories once removed.

Ah! The English language was a wonderful thing! You could always find the right word. He only wished he could speak the language.