You can start any 'Monty Python' routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how iconic Monty Python routines are deeply ingrained in popular culture, allowing people to complete them effortlessly.
Robin Williams points out that Monty Python's routines have achieved a cultural significance where they are so well-known that audiences can join in and complete the lines spontaneously. This shared familiarity reflects how comedy can create a unique bond among people, serving as a form of cultural shorthand that transcends individual experiences.
In practice
During a comedy workshop, someone might quote Robin Williams to illustrate how jokes can bond people.
It's that idea that you can have one drink - and no you can't. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, 'Wow.' Because you have that initial warm feeling going, 'Oh, I remember this'. And your body does, too. And your body goes, 'Yeah, so do I'. Then the demon voice comes, 'Yeah, so do I. You know what would be great? You know we bought a little bottle before? A full bottle would be wonderful'.
I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.
Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.
I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance, were it not for making living, which is rather a nouciance.
Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.
When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can't bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.
The New York papers have long known that no large question is ever really settled until I have been consulted.
I wouldnβt mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge
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