- Jane Curtin: It was difficult working with John. I don't know whether it was ego or ambition or the drugs, but he didn't seem to respect the women on the show
- Harold Ramis: For John, it's a classic addictive pattern, you know, it's what makes an addict an addict: It's the expectation that if you just get more of your drugs that you will finally cross over some threshold or find some permanent satisfaction that you can't get high enough, you can't get famous enough, you can't get rich enough to kind of fill those - those great holes.
- Bruce McGill: In the script, John's character had much more dialogue than he does in the movie. I took most of his lines away because this idea of Bluto as kind of -- you know, I told him to channel Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster. It's just appetite. And what Belushi had that was so great.. you actually can watch his thought process. You know. You can see the ideas seeping through his skull. But what both the Cookie Monster and Harpo have, despite their destructive tendencies, is they're both very, very sweet. And that's the strength of John's performance.
- Chevy Chase: He was clearly the star. He had great command. He had confidence. And you know, we all looked up to him that way.
- Tom Schiller: He was one of the most lovable and tragic characters that I've ever met. he could be completely kind and thoughtful and generous and wonderful and at the flip side of the coin, be chaotic, tortured, you know. He also was hilariously funny. He just had a sort of giant humanity. that hooked into the collective unconsciousness of people's funny bone.
- Dan Aykroyd: He was sad and defeated, and when I said, "John, come on, man, you've gotta get home. You've got to leave Hollywood alone for a while. Let's approach it from another angle. I'm writing something great here for us that's gonna solve everything." I was writing Ghostbusters! So he said OK - it's just that his sensitive side caved in. He was numbing the pain and fighting it off, and it seemed like he could never get out of that. And I thought, "I better finish this page, this paragraph, and get the f-- out there." But I didn't get to him in time. Of course, you know, I carry that with me forever.
- Harold Ramis: [talking about Second City] Before John came, I was the long haired guy. I was the hippie, the freak, the radical, or whatever. But, he was genuinely all those things. And it's kind of like what was happening with the whole generation, you know. He kind of shattered the limits and brought rock-n-roll to the show.
- Harold Ramis: John had always had appetites that were completely out of control for everything. But, I didn't start to worry about him until they were at the Universal Amphitheatre playing for 7,000 people. I looked at John on the stage and I thought he's on the most popular comedy television show of our generation... he's in the most successful comedy film - ever... and now he's on stage fronting an amazing band. My first thought was how great for him. My second thought was, knowing his appetites, I don' think he'll survive this.
- Carrie Fisher: John didn't have a limit - on anything. Usually people have in them a thing where you go, "Ooo-oo, that's too much." But, John didn't have whatever that is.
- Carrie Fisher: [after being told John had been mostly clean for about a year] Well, that must have been a screaming hell for him. Drugs aren't the problem. Sobriety is the problem. Because, he had no support group to sort of tell him how to deal with what comes up when you stop doing drugs. You're not doing drugs for no reason. And, so, once you're management medication is removed, all those feelings thet it's been sitting on come up and you have no coping skills. So, you can't trust yourself.
- Anne Beatts: He was late, he was erratic. He did have difficulties, obviously. I mean the phrase 'where's John?' was said as frequently in rehearsals as 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night.'
- Jim Belushi: He chaged Second City, cause all they used to talk about was philosophy and intellectual concepts and John would come in there and play this hippie off the street who's lost his memory from smoking too much pot, and the audience would go nuts.
- Sean Kelly: Onstage he was dangerous. He gave the impression that anything could happen, so you were engaged by his raw id. And it was vulnerable, the way an id is. There's nothing protecting it. It must've hurt a lot.
- Tom Schiller: He was one of the most lovable and tragic characters I've ever met. He could be completely kind and thoughtful and generous and wonderful. And at the flip side of the coin, be caotic and tortured, you know. He also was hilariously funny. He just had a sort of giant humanity that hooked into the collective unconsciousness of people's funny bone.
- John Belushi: I don't see myself as any type at all. I see myself as a new type, you know. I take each thing as it comes. Try it. Not afraid to do whatever energy that I have which makes it different than other performers.
- Jim Belushi: He said to me one time, you got to go on stage like a bull in a bull ring - with that much energy and that much physicality. Just *jump* out there and do it.
- Harold Ramis: We really felt that we were in the presence of genius. John would have done anything for a laugh and, you know, that carried over into everything else. I mean, he was heroic in his consumption, you know. I both admired it and feared it and realized that it would take John *really* far. But, there was something safer and more comfortable about being me, than there was about being him.
- Judith Belushi-Pisano: That was John Belushi 101: You don't do something if you don't believe in it.
- Sean Kelly: Onstage, he was dangerous. He gave the impression that anything could happen. So, you were engaged by this raw id. And it was vulnerable, the way an id is. There's nothing protecting it. He must have hurt a lot.
- Laila Nabulsi: John's way more comfortable on stage, than anywhere else. And I always said to him," I don't understand how you can do that - get up on the stage with no fear whatsoever." And he always said, "Yeah, but, you do the thing that I can't do - which is you're more comfortable in life. I don't know how you do that."
- Harold Ramis: He became our strongman and instead of stealing every scene, he knew how to save any scene. Literally, he'd walk onstage and people would laugh
- Joe Flaherty: You can't talk about John and not mention drugs because John did do a lot of drugs. But it was part pf the culture and everybody was actively saying that drugs enhance your artistic vision. And it was even encouraged to a certain extent. But I mean, it didn't affect his performance or anything like that.