There are some movies, for those who love comedy, where almost every line feels like an old friend. Movies that we’ve watched a hundred times over, maybe more. Movies that are embedded in our souls. Without question, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of those movies, delighting young and old alike for the past 50 years.
Comedy troupe Monty Python made their scripted film debut with the silly adventures of King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his fellow knights in 1975. Some critics at the time maybe struggled to get the joke: “It has a delightfully authentic period look but wallows in gore. Best left to those who find frequent and graphic decapitation and dismemberment a laff [sic] riot,” Kevin Thomas wrote in the Los Angeles Times after its debut at the Los Angeles International Film Exposition. Turns out that “those who find frequent and graphic decapitation and dismemberment a laff [sic] riot” describes the multiple generations of comedy fans who have embraced the movie.
Below, we’ve assembled the 10 Holy Grail quotes that come to mind most when we remember the movie — the quotes that have helped enshrine the film in the pantheon of comedy greats, as uttered by Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and more. Check out our picks below. Do not “run away!”
“Bring out your dead!”
“Must be a king… He hasn’t got shit all over him.”
“I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”
“Well, she turned me into a newt!… I got better.”
“Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government.”
“It’s just a flesh wound.”
“On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.”
“We are the knights who say… ‘Ni!’”
“Look, it’s my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.”
And finally… “Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide! It’s a killer!”
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