6 Peter Cook Quotes on Legacy

Peter Cook quotes on legacy

46. The funniest man who ever drew breath. ~ Stephen Fry

50. He got used early to the adulation of a wide public and eventually decided that he could do without it; long before the end, fame had to chase him far harder than he chased it. But among his fellow practitioners his lustre was undimmed, unequalled. and unchallenged... Just as the astronauts riding up on their rockets all worshipped Chuck Yeager, the jet pilot who never joined them in space because he flew too well with wings, so the media millionaires all knew that Cook was the unsurpassable precursor who had done it all before they did, and done it better. ~ Clive James, in an online tribute.

51. He wasn't just a genius, he had the genius's impatience with the whole idea of doing something again. He reinvented an art form, exhausted its possibilities, and just left it. There is always something frightening about that degree of inventiveness... He didn't lose his powers. He just lost interest in proving that he possessed them. ~ Clive James

54. I remember being moved to tears when Peter said: 'I know I was funny but I know I won't improve, I won't get any better'. I was lucky to be around when he was at his peak. Verbally he was the most witty man that I have ever come across and strangely inventive. ~ Dudley Moore

56. He's one of those people who is completely and utterly irreplaceable. One of the things he did was to form the basis of what one would call the new comedy of the 1960s and 1970s. His achievement is absolutely extraordinary. ~ Michael Palin

57. Obviously, he was the first - he was the Governor. Right from the start with those very precocious sketches for the Cambridge Footlights and through Beyond the Fringe, he was an exceptional talent... Every 10 years or so you always get a new generation of comedians but they all acknowledge their debt to Peter. ~ Ned Sherrin