Background Image

...

[an Audience Conditioned By A Lifetime Of Television-watching Is So Corrupted That] Their Standards Have Been Systematically Lowered Over The Years. These Guys Sit In Front Of Their Sets And The Gamma Rays Eat The White Cells Of Their Brains Out!

-Woody Allen

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

[an Audience Conditioned By

Woody Allen

...

[an Audience Conditioned By A Lifetime Of Television-watching Is So Corrupted That] Their Standards Have Been Systematically Lowered Over The Years. These Guys Sit In Front Of Their Sets And The Gamma Rays Eat The White Cells Of Their Brains Out!

Views: 9980

Topic

Television Watching

More From Woody Allen

It Is No Secret That Organized Crime In America Takes In Over Forty Billion Dollars A Year. This Is Quite A Profitable Sum, Especially When One Considers That The Mafia Spends Very Little For Office Supplies.

Chastity Is Curable, If Detected Early.

There Are Worse Things Than Death. Many Of Them Playing At A Theater Near You.

The Good Sleep Better, But The Bad Seem To Enjoy The Waking Hours Much More.

I've Never Dated A Fictional Character Before. The Closest I Ever Came Was An Italian.

Fictional Character

Rather Than Live On In The Hearts And Minds Of My Fellow Man, I Would Rather Live On In My Apartment.

Is World Peace Possible Or Is The Human Race Too Innately Aggressive? For Instance: Have You Ever Seen Women At A Sample Sale?

Maybe The Poets Are Right. Maybe Love Is The Only Answer.

My Grammy Never Gave Gifts, You Know. She Was Too Busy Getting Raped By Cossacks.

Sex Is Like Having Dinner: Sometimes You Joke About The Dishes, Sometimes You Take The Meal Seriously.

If You Don't Fail Now And Again, It's A Sign You're Playing It Safe.

Playing It Safe

Sex Without Love Is An Empty Experience, But As Empty Experiences Go, It's One Of The Best.

I Enjoy The Making Of The Film And It's Something For Me To Do. If Nobody Ever Comes To My Films, If People Don't Want To Give Me Money To Make Films, That Will Stop Me. But As Long As People Come All Over The World And I Have An Audience And I Have Ideas For Films, I Will Do Them For As Long As I Enjoy The Process. And I Like The Whole Process Of Making A Film.

You Know How You're Always Trying To Get Things To Come Out Perfect In Art Because It's Real Difficult In Life

Better Not Think Too Much. Relying More On The Body: It Is More Trustworthy.

I Don't Think My Film Style Has Changed. I'm Doing The Same Kind Of Jokes I Did When I Was Younger.

I Love The Rain - It Washes Memories Off The Sidewalk Of Life.

There Is Dignity In Suffering; Nobility In Pain; But Failure Is A Salted Wound, That Burns And Burns Again!

My Brain? It's My Second Favorite Organ!

Paris Is Particularly Beautiful In The Rain. It Was Just A Nice Experience For Me, A Pleasant Experience, And I Was Able To Present It To The World Through My Eyes, Very Subjectively - Not Realistically, But Subjectively.

It Seems To Me That Making Escapist Films Might Be A Better Service To People Than Making Intellectual Ones And Making Films That Deal With Issues. It Might Be Better To Just Make Escapist Comedies That Don't Touch On Any Issues. The People Just Get A Cool Lemonade, And Then They Go Out Refreshed, They Enjoy Themselves, They Forget How Awful Things Are And It Helps Them - It Strengthens Them To Get Through The Day.

When You Write The Script, You're Home In A Room By Yourself, And You're Writing, And There's No Connection With The Real Performing World. So You Get A Lot Of Things Wrong And Make A Lot Of Mistakes And Make A Lot Of Bad Choices.

With Me; It's Just A Genetic Dissatisfaction With Everything.

Dissatisfaction

I Took A Test In Existentialism. I Left All The Answers Blank And Got 100.

My Lord, My Lord! What Hath Thou Done Lately?

When I Started Out, I Was A Television Writer, And We Wrote A Television Show That Was On Live Every Week. And You Didn't Have The Luxury Of Coming In And Waiting To Be Inspired. You Came In And You Had To Write. And You Wrote, Because It Was Going To Be Live On The Air. So I Can Do That.

If You Aren't Failing Every Now And Then, You're Probably Playing It Too Safe.

Nothing Worth Knowing Can Be Understood With The Mind.

For Some Reason I'm More Appreciated In France Than I Am Back Home. The Subtitles Must Be Incredibly Good.

His Lack Of Education Is More Than Compensated For By His Keenly Developed Moral Bankruptcy.

You Are Much More Dependent On Luck Than You Think. People Say If You Want To Have A Good Relationship, You Have To Work At It. But You Never Hear It About Anything You Really Like, About Sailing Or Going To Soccer Games.

The Audience Is Making The Film And Not The Film-maker.

Over The Years I've Never Written Or Made Movies About Political Themes 'cause While They Do Have Current Critical Importance, In The Large, Large Scheme Of Things, Only The Big Questions Matter And The Answers To Those Big Questions Are Very, Very Depressing.

If I Can Play A Scene In A Master Shot, I Always Prefer It. And The Actors Always Prefer It. It's Fun To Look At On The Screen, The Actors Get A Chance To Sink Their Teeth Into Something Substantial, And It's Economically Helpful.

The Universe Is Merely A Fleeting Idea In God's Mind -- A Pretty Uncomfortable Thought, Particularly If You've Just Made A Down Payment On A House.

If I Just Got Up In The Morning And Had No Place To Go And Was Retired Or Something, I Would Be Sitting There And Be Thinking, "gee, What Is The Purpose Of Life? Why Are We All Finite? Why Do We Get Old And Die? Is There Nothing Out There? Why Is It So Tragic? Why Do Our Loved Ones Perish? Why Do We Generate?" Who Wants To Think About That Stuff?

Usually, You Hire People That You Think Are Wonderful.

Everybody Knows How Awful The World Is And What A Terrible Situation It Is And Each Person Distorts It In A Certain Way That Enables Him To Get Through. Some People Distort It With Religious Things. Some People Distort It With Sports, With Money, With Love, With Art, And They All Have Their Own Nonsense About What Makes It Meaningful, And All But Nothing Makes It Meaningful. These Things Definitely Serve A Certain Function, But In The End They All Fail To Give Life Meaning And Everyone Goes To His Grave In A Meaningless Way.

If It Turns Out That There Is A God...the Worst That You Can Say About Him Is That Basically He's An Underachiever.

Me Sitting Down For Dinner With Ingmar Bergman Felt Like A House Painter Sitting Down With Picasso.

Take The Money And Run.

See, I Never Gain An Ounce, Because, You Know, My Anxiety Acts Like Aerobics.

Why Are Our Days Numbered And Not, Say, Lettered?

I Have No Idea What I Am Doing But Incompetence Has Never Prevented Me From Plunging In With Enthusiasm.

I Think It's My Job Or The Artist's Job, To Try And Find Some Solution Or Some Reason To Accept Things. But Given The Grimmest Reality, I Feel The Grimmest Facts Are The Real Facts, The True Facts: That You're Born, You Die, You Suffer, It's To No Purpose, And You're Gone Forever, Ever, Ever, And That's It.

It's A Match Made In Heaven...by A Retarded Angel.

If You're Not Failing Every Now And Again, It's A Sign You're Not Doing Anything Very Innovative.

Meanwhile, The Minute You Put On The Dotted Line Your Sam Hancock - And Before A Notary - You'll Not Only Get The Negative But Elsie Makes A Wonderful Stuffed Cabbage Which We'll Include Gratis A Few Portions But Return The Jars Please.

I Don't Know Enough To Be Incompetent.

A Fast Word About Oral Contraception. I Was Involved In An Extremely Good Example Of Oral Contraception Two Weeks Ago. I Asked A Girl To Go To Bed With Me, She Said 'no'.

I Was Raised In The Jewish Tradition, Taught Never To Marry A Gentile Woman, Shave On A Saturday Night And, Most Especially, Never To Shave A Gentile Woman On A Saturday Night.

Jewish Tradition

The Last Time I Was Inside A Woman Was When I Went To The Statue Of Liberty.

You Look Up After Many Years And You Find That A Film Has Become A Classic Because It's Meaningful To People And Alive, Decade After Decade.

No Matter What The Shrinks, Or The Pundits, Or The Self-help Books Tell You, When It Comes To Love, It's Luck.

Can You Believe That? She Says I'm Not Leader Enough For Her. Who Was She Looking For... Hitler?

There's An Old Joke - Um... Two Elderly Women Are At A Catskill Mountain Resort, And One Of 'em Says, "boy, The Food At This Place Is Really Terrible." The Other One Says, "yeah, I Know; And Such Small Portions." Well, That's Essentially How I Feel About Life - Full Of Loneliness, And Misery, And Suffering, And Unhappiness, And It's All Over Much Too Quickly.

Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons.

Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up.

He's A Genius, She's A Genius, Wow, You Know Alot Of Geniuses, You Should Meet Some Stupid People Sometime, You Might Learn Something

My Parents Stayed Together For Forty Years. But That Was Out Of Spite.

When You Make The Film, There's A Big Difference Between When You're In Your Own Home At The Typewriter, And When You're Standing On A Mountain, Or On A Street Corner, And Buses Are Coming By-it's A Different Reality. You Make A Million Changes That Were Never In The Script, But That Reality Dictates.

The Jewish Culture - People That Are Jewish Have A Certain Cultural Habit That They've Formed And One Of Those Habits Is An Appreciation Of Theater And Music - These Are Cultural Things One Does Associate With Values That Are Promulgated By Jewish Families. I Think That's A Good Thing.

I Just Can't Listen To Any More Wagner, You Know...i'm Starting To Get The Urge To Conquer Poland.

In Every Generation There Are A Few People Who Are Authentically Funny. The Cosmetics Change. You May Not Be Able To Articulate It, And You May Laugh At Them And Get A Certain Amount Of Enjoyment. But When You're Asleep At Night, And You Wake Up At 3 In The Morning, And You're Alone In Your Bed, You Know Who's Really Funny.

I Don't Why Whatever Works And Whatever Doesn't. You Just Make The Film That You Enjoy Making At The Time, And You Think There's A Good Chance That People Might Enjoy The Story. You're Surprised Pleasantly When They Do. It's Just Luck.

But What If Everyone In The World Behaved Like Me And Came Here And Shot Brisseau Through The Ear? What A Mess! And Of Course We'd Need Valet Parking.

If There Is Reincarnation, I'd Like To Come Back As Warren Beatty's Fingertips.

A: Socrates Is A Man. B: All Men Are Mortal. C: All Men Are Socrates.

Who's The Bigger Idiot, The Idiot Or The Idiot Who Gets Fooled By The Idiot?

I Can't With Any Conscience Argue For New York With Anyone. It's Like Calcutta. But I Love The City In An Emotional, Irrational Way, Like Loving Your Mother Or Your Father Even Though They're A Drunk Or A Thief. I've Loved The City My Whole Life - To Me, It's Like A Great Woman.

I’m Going To Kill Myself. I Should Go To Paris And Jump Off The Eiffel Tower. I’ll Be Dead. You Know, In Fact, If I Get The Concorde, I Could Be Dead Three Hours Earlier, Which Would Be Perfect. Or Wait A Minute. It -- With The Time Change, I Could Be Alive For Six Hours In New York But Dead Three Hours In Paris. I Could Get Things Done, And I Could Also Be Dead.

Arlene And I Have To Get A Divorce. She Thinks I'm A Pervert Because I Drank Our Water Bed.

You'll Find As You Go Through Life That Great Depth And Smoldering Sensuality Don't Always Win.

You Can't Anticipate In The Room The Riches Of What You Encounter When You're Location Hunting For A Movie.

Your Still Searching For Me In Every Woman. You'll Always Seek To Duplicate What We Had. You Know It.

Raised By Two Mothers...wow, Most Of Us Barely Survive One

My Ex-wife Was A Philosophy Major At Nyu. Yeah, She And I Used To Have Deep Philosophical Discussions Where She Would Prove That I Didn't Exist.

We Stand At A Crossroads. One Path Leads To Despair, The Other To Destruction. Let's Hope We Make The Right Choice.

I Believe That Sex Is A Beautiful Thing Between Two People. Between Five, It's Fantastic.

My Films Are Misinterpreted All The Time. I Don't Mind That. Everybody's Films Are Misinterpreted. But There's No Malice Or Stupidity In The People That Misinterpret Them. You Know What You Do, But Someone Else Sees It, And They Want To Talk About It Or Write About It, And So They Misinterpret Them.

When You Make The Film, It's Like A Chef Who Works On The Meal. After You're Working All Day In The Kitchen And Dicing And Cutting And Putting The Sauces On, You Don't Want To Eat It. That's How I Always Feel About The Films. I Work On It For A Year. I've Written It, I've Worked With The Actors, I've Edited, Put The Music In. I Just Never Want To See It Again.

You Can't Control Life. It Doesn't Wind Up Perfectly. Only-only Art You Can Control. Art And Masturbation. Two Areas In Which I Am An Absolute Expert.

My Heart Says One Thing. My Head Says Another. Very Hard To Get Your Heart And Head Together In Life.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach!

Magic Has Always Been Of A Great Interest Of Mine. I Was An Amateur Magician When I Was Young. I Used To Practice And Read Up On It A Lot. I'm Well-aware Of The History Of Magic.

Marriage Is The Death Of Hope.

Those Modern Analysts, They Charge So Much! In My Day, For Five Marks Freud Himself Would Treat You. For Ten Marks He Would Treat You And Press Your Pants. For Fifteen Marks Freud Would Let You Treat Him - That Included A Choice Of Any Two Vegetables.

A Man That Has Never Lied To A Woman Has No Respect For Her Feelings.

All The Crap They Tell You About... Getting Joy And Having A Kind Of Wisdom In Your Golden Years - It's All Tripe.

All My Life Is Passing In Front Of My Eyes. The Worst Part Of It Is I'm Driving A Used Car.

For Me Personally - Because I Do It Myself - The Scoring Of A Picture Is Fun. I Edit The Picture And When I've Finished I Go Into My Room And I Have Many Many Records - Jazz, Classical And Popular Music. And I Have This All At My Disposal. I Don't Have To Get A Composer.

Never Shoot Up In The Air When You're Standing Under It.

I Don't Like To Meet The Actor And Have A Lot Of Conferences And Talk About Their Sub-life And Their Off-screen Life And Their Back Stories And All That Nonsense, Because It Never Means Anything.

I Want To Tell You A Terrific Story About Oral Contraception. I Asked This Girl To Sleep With Me And She Said 'no.

The Roe Is Reputed To Sleep For A Thousand Years And Then Suddenly Rise In Flames, Particularly If It Was Smoking When It Dozed Off.

The Best Things In Life Are Censored.

Best Things In Life

People Ask Me Whether I Think That One Day I Might Wake Up One Morning And Run Dry, But I've Had The Opposite Feeling - That I Would Die Before I Had Time To Write All The Ideas In My Drawer.

Basically My Wife Was Immature. I'd Be At Home In The Bath And She'd Come In And Sink My Boats.

Eternity Is Really Long, Especially Near The End.

I Believe In Sex And Death- Two Experiences That Come Once In A Lifetime.

There's A Tacit Agreement Between Myself And The Audience That I Will Entertain Them When They Buy Their Ticket, And I've Been The One That Has Screwed That Up. Once In While I Indulge Myself And Try Something Else, And I Keep My Fingers Crossed That It Will Come Out Good And There'll Be Enough People Who Will Enjoy It, But That Doesn't Often Happen.

It's A Wonderful Thing To Be Able To Create Your Own World Whenever You Want To. Writing Is Very Pleasurable, Very Seductive, And Very Therapeutic. Time Passes Very Fast When I'm Writing-really Fast. I'm Puzzling Over Something, And Time Just Flies By. It's An Exhilarating Feeling. How Bad Can It Be? It's Sitting Alone With Fictional Characters. You're Escaping From The World In Your Own Way And That's Fine. Why Not?

Exhilarating Feeling

To Me, Movies Are Valuable As An Art Form And As A Wonderful Means Of Popular Entertainment. But I Think Movies Have Gone Terribly Wrong.

How Is It Possible To Find Meaning In A Finite World, Given My Waist And Shirt Size?

I Believe There Is Something Out There Watching Us. Unfortunately, It's The Government.

My One Regret In Life Is That I Am Not Someone Else.

Visually I've Always Liked The 20s 30s For Film. I Do These Because I Like The Music. I Like The Clothes. I Like The Way The Women And The Guys Look. There Are Soldiers And Sailors And Gangsters With The Machine Guns In Their Violin Cases. It's A Very Colorful Era Of New York, Full Of Great Theater And Great Nightclubs And Great Jazz.

Why Ruin A Good Story With The Truth?

It's Easier To Direct. If You Direct Something Poorly And Re-shoot It The Next Day, Stage It Better, Make It Work Better, You Have A Lot Of Possibilities. You Can Edit It In Certain Ways So That It Works, But There's No Getting Around Weaknesses Of The Script.

I'm Very Old-fashioned. I Believe That People Should Stay Married For Life, Like Pigeons And Catholics.

Confidence Is What You Have Before You Understand The Problem.

My Mother Never Had Time For Me. When You're The Middle Child In A Family Of Five Million, You Don't Get Any Attention.

There's Something About My Films; They're Informed By My Sensibility. I Have The Same Preoccupations, The Same Interests... There's Just Something In The Nuance, And So You Always Know It's A Film Of Mine Whether I Sign My Name To It Or Not.

What People Who Don't Write Don't Understand Is That They Think You Make Up The Line Consciously — But You Don't. It Proceeds From Your Unconscious. So It's The Same Surprise To You When It Emerges As It Is To The Audience When The Comic Says It. I Don't Think Of The Joke And Then Say It. I Say It And Then Realize What I've Said. And I Laugh At It, Because I'm Hearing It For The First Time Myself.

I Never Wanted To Or Expected To Make A Film Outside Of New York. New York Became Very, Very Expensive. The Same $18 Million Spent In Barcelona Or Rome Goes Much Further There.

The Lion And The Calf Shall Lie Down Together But The Calf Won't Get Much Sleep.

As I've Gotten Older, The Parts Have Diminished. I Liked It When I Was Younger, I Could Always Play The Lead In The Movie And I Could Do All The Romantic Scenes With The Women, And It Was Fun And I Liked To Play That. Now, I'm Older And I'm Reduced To Playing The Backstage Doorman Or The Uncle Or Something. I Don't Really Love That So Occasionally, When A Part Comes Up, I'll Play It.

There's Nothing Sexier Than A Lapsed Catholic.

There Is No Question That There Is An Unseen World. The Problem Is, How Far Is It From Midtown And How Late Is It Open?

I Think There Is Too Much Wrong With The World To Ever Get Too Relaxed And Happy. The More Natural State, And The Better One, I Think, Is One Of Some Anxiety And Tension Over Man's Plight In This Mysterious Universe.

Mysterious Universe

How Wrong Emily Dickinson Was! Hope Is Not "the Thing With Feathers." The Thing With Feathers Has Turned Out To Be My Nephew. I Must Take Him To A Specialist In Zurich.

My Parents Were Very Old World. They Come From Brooklyn, Which Is The Heart Of The Old World. Their Values In Life Are God And Carpeting.

You Always Think Another Time Would Have Been Ideal For You . . . The Reality Is There Was No Novocaine When You Went To The Dentist.

Events Unfold So Unpredictably, So Unfairly, Human Happiness Does Not Seem To Be Included In The Design Of Creation. It Is Only We, With Our Capacity To Love That Give Meaning To The Indifferent Universe. And Yet, Most Human Beings Seem To Have The Ability To Keep Trying And Even Try To Find Joy From Simple Things, Like Their Family, Their Work, And From The Hope That Future Generations Might Understand More.

Capacity To Love

90 Per Cent Of Success Is Turning Up.

I Like Writing. It Keeps My Mind Off Grim Subjects. It's Therapeutic In The Same Way A Patient In An Institution Is Given Fingerpaints.

Your Audience Teaches You How To Be Funny.

It's Important To Control Yourself Because Life Gets Too Complicated If You Don't, But The Impulse Is Often There For People. Some Say Society Should Be More Open. That Doesn't Work Either.

90% Of Success In Life Is Showing Up

Success In Life

Men Would Make Love With Any Number Of Women ... Even Total Strangers, While Females Were Selective. They Were Catering To The Demands Of One Small Egg. While Males Had Millions Of Frantic Sperms Screaming: "let Us Out, Let Us Out!".

Remember, If You Smoke After Sex You're Doing It Too Fast.

It's All Through The Actors; I Cannot Write In That Idiom

If You Aren't Failing, You Aren't Trying.

Life Is Full Of Misery, Loneliness, And Suffering - And It's All Over Much Too Soon.

To Be A Film Director Is Not A Democracy, It's Really A Tyranny. You're The Head Of The Project, For Better Rather Than Worse. I Write The Film And I Direct The Film, I Decide Who's Going To Be In It, I Decide On The Editing, I Put In The Music From My Own Record Collection.

People Think I'm An Artist Because My Films Lose Money.

I Should Go To Paris And Jump Off Of The Eiffel Tower. If I Took The Concorde, I Could Be Dead Three Hours Earlier.

My Gift Was In Comedy. I Found Out I Could Make Jokes. I Could Tell Jokes. I Could Write Them. So Over The Years, That's What I've Done.

[...] I've Come To The Conclusion That The Artist Can Not Justify Life Or Come Up With A Cogent Reason As To Why Life Is Meaningful, But The Artist Can Provide You With A Cold Glass Of Water On A Hot Day.

I Do Believe That Reality Is Dreadful And That You Are Forced To Choose It In The End Or Go Crazy, But That It Kills You.

The Heart Wants What It Wants. There's No Logic To These Things. You Meet Someone And You Fall In Love And That's That.

If You Can Delude Yourself By Believing That There Is Some Kind Of Santa Claus Out There Who Is Going To Bail You Out In The End, Then It Will Help You Get Through. Even If You Are Proven Wrong In The End, You Would Have Had A Better Life Than A Non-believer.

Bisexuality Immediately Doubles Your Chances For A Date On Saturday Night.

It's Just Gossip, You Know. Gossip Is The New Pornography.

The Content Dictates The Style All The Time. That's The Way It Is. If The Content Of The Film - As In Husbands And Wives - Is Highly Jagged, Neurotic, Fast-paced, Nervous New York Film, It Just Called For That Kind Of Shooting, Editing And Performance.

There's Nothing Like The Discovery Of An Unknown Work By A Great Thinker To Set The Intellectual Community Atwitter And Cause Academics To Dart About Like Those Things One Sees When Looking At A Drop Of Water Under A Microscope.

God, You Jews Are Truly Exotic." Exotic? She Should Only Know The Greenblatts. Or Mr. And Mrs. Milton Sharpstein, My Father's Friends. Or For That Matter, My Cousin Tovah. Exotic? I Mean, They're Nice, But Hardly Exotic With Their Endless Bickering Over The Best Way To Combat Indigestion Or How Far Back To Sit From The Television Set.

It Has Become Harder And Harder In The United States To Make Films Unhampered By Outside Influences. I've Always Been Able To Steer Clear Of That And Keep The Business People Out Of My Hair Completely.

In Formulating Any Philosophy The First Consideration Must Always Be: What Can We Know? That Is, What Can We Be Sure We Know, Or Sure That We Know We Knew It, If Indeed It Is At All Knowable. Or Have We Simply Forgotten It And Are Too Embarrassed To Say Anything? Descartes Hinted At The Problem When He Wrote, 'my Mind Can Never Know My Body, Although It Has Become Quite Friendly With My Legs.

I Don't Like To Reminisce Much, And My Walls Don't Have Photographs Of Me And The Actors I Was With, Or Any Of That Stuff... I Try And Keep That Disciplined, And Just Work. There Are So Many Traps You Can Get Into, And Looking Back On Your Own Work Is Certainly One Of Them.

Who Bothers To Cook Tv Dinners? I Suck Them Frozen.

I've Never Been An Intellectual But I Have This Look.

I Don't Believe In The After Life, Although I Am Bringing A Change Of Underwear.

Sex Between A Man And A Woman Can Be Absolutely Wonderful; Provided You Get Between The Right Man And The Right Woman.

I Feel Humor Is Important For Those Two Reasons: That It Is A Little Bit Of Refreshment Like Music, And That Women Have Told Me Over The Years That It Is Very, Very Important To Them.

Heaven Knows, We All Make Mistakes. That's Life - And Chess.

Today I Saw A Red And Yellow Sunset And Thought, How Insignificant I Am! Of Course, I Thought That Yesterday Too, And It Rained.

You Can't Ride Two Horses With One Behind.

You Know What My Philosophy Of Life Is? That It’s Important To Have Some Laughs, But You Got To Suffer A Little Too, Because Otherwise You Miss The Whole Point To Life.

Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone. Every Once In Awhile He Needs A Salad.

I Have A Hyper-active Imagination, My Mind Tends To Jump Around A Little, And I Have Some Trouble Between Fantasy And Reality.

Everything In Life Turns Out To Be A Distraction From The Real Thing You Want To Do. There Are A Million Distractions And When I Was A Kid I Was Very Disciplined. I Knew That The Other Kids Weren't. I Was The One Able To Do The Thing, Not Because I Had More Talent, Maybe Less, But Because They Simply Weren't Applying Themselves.

By Now They Had Mastered My Own Language, But They Still Made Simple Mistakes, Like Using 'hermeneutics,' When They Meant 'heuristic'.

I Cannot Say For Certain That God Does Not Exist; I Think The Worst Thing That Can Be Said About Him Is That He's A Bit Of An Underachiever.

I Never Considered Myself An Artist. I Aspire To Be An Artist, But I Never Thought I Had The Depth Or Substance Or Gift To Be An Artist. I Do Think I Have Some Talent, But It Doesn't Go As Far As Being An Artist.

Fantasy Is Seductive And Much More Wonderful Than Reality, But You Can't Take It To The Bank. It's Always An Escape. And If Used As An Escape, As In Attending A Movie Or A Show For A Circumscribed Period Of Time, It's Fine. When It Starts To Become Undifferentiated From Reality, It Leads To Big Trouble.

In New York State They Have A Strange Law That Says You Can't Get A Divorce Unless You Can Prove Adultery - And It's Weird, Because The Ten Commandments Say 'thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.' But New York State Says You Have To. Well, Finally, What Happened Was That My Wife Committed Adultery For Me. She's Always Been More Mechanically Inclined Than I Have.

What Was The Scandal? I Fell In Love With This Girl, Married Her. We Have Been Married For Almost 15 Years Now.

Believing Would Be Easier If God Would Show Himself By Depositing A Million Dollars In A Swiss Bank Account In My Name

The Talent For Being Happy Is Appreciating And Liking What You Have, Instead Of What You Don't Have.

I Don't Know The Question, But Sex Is Definitely The Answer.

You'll Live To Be A Hundred If You Give Up All The Things That Make You Want To.

I'm Not A Big Believer In The Sense Of Jews Having A Monopoly On Comedy.

There Is Something About Big Cities That Turns Me On, And For Whatever Mysterious Reason, Places Like New York And Paris Inspire Me. I Think It's Because Cities Represent Civilization, And As Crime-ridden And Broken Down As Some Of Them Are, It's Still Better Than Skipping Through A Meadow.

I'm Such A Good Lover Because I Practice A Lot On My Own.

You Can Be With Your Wife, Very Happily Married, And Then You Meet Some Woman And You Love Her. But You Love Your Wife, Too. And You Also Love That One. Or If She's Met Some Man And She Loves The Man And She Loves You. And Then You Meet Somebody Else And Now There Are Three Of You. Why Only One Person?

All Things Are Possible, Except Skiing Through A Revolving Door.

I'm Giving [my Analyst] One More Year--then I'm Going To Lourdes.

I Believe People Ought To Mate For Life...like Pigeons Or Catholics.

Figures Tell Us There Are Already More People On Earth Than We Need To Move Even The Heaviest Piano.

When I Was Kidnapped, My Parents Snapped Into Action. They Rented Out My Room.

Film Is More Of Novelty, Because I've Done So Much Theater Over Many Years. I'm In Love With Making Movies. Also, I Find It Easier To Remember Three Minutes Of Dialogue Than Three Hours.

I Love Baseball. You Know, It Doesn’t Have To Mean Anything. It’s Just Very Beautiful To Watch.

I Have Great Faith In The Actors. When They Improvise, It Always Sounds Better Than The Stuff I Write In My Bedroom. When They Improvise, They Make It Sound Alive.

Real Software Engineers Don't Debug Programs, They Verify Correctness. This Process Doesn't Necessarily Involve Execution Of Anything On A Computer, Except Perhaps A Correctness Verification Aid Package. Sex Without Love Is An Empty Experience, But, As Empty Experiences Go, It's One Of The Best.

Real Life Is Generally Much Duller And Inevitably Sadder, Most Of The Time. In Film, You Control Everything That's Going On, So You Can Indulge The Most Fantastic, Romantic, Escapist Feelings And Fantasies. You Can Do Anything You Want. That's Why It's Very Seductive And Pleasurable To Earn Your Living Making Movies Because You're Not Living In The Real World.

I Tended To Place My Wife Under A Pedestal.

I Don't Think My Parents Liked Me. They Put A Live Teddy Bear In My Crib.

Should I Marry W.? Not If She Won't Tell Me The Other Letters In Her Name.

My Relationship With American Audiences Is The Exact Same As It Always Has Been. They Never Came To See My Films, And They Don't Come Now.

I Prefer To Achieve Immortality By Not Dying.

I Carry A Bullet In My Breast Pocket. Once, A Crazy Evangelist Threw A Bible At Me, Which Would Have Gone Through My Heart If It Wasn't For The Bullet.

I Will Not Eat Oysters. I Want My Food Dead - Not Sick, Not Wounded - Dead.

What If The Worst Is True? What If There's No God, And You Only Go Around Once, And That's It? Don't You Want To Be A Part Of The Experience? You Know, What The Hell? It's Not All A Drag, And I'm Thinking To Myself: Geez! I Should Stop Ruining My Life Searching For Answers I'm Never Gonna Get And Just Enjoy It While It Lasts. And, You Know, After-who Knows? Maybe There Is Something, Nobody Really Knows. I Know That Maybe Is A Very Slim Reed To Hang Your Whole Life On, But That's The Best We Have.

If You're Not Failing, You're Not Trying Anything.

Learning From Mistakes

And In All Of Babylonia There Was Wailing And Gnashing Of Teeth, 'til The Prophets Bade The Multitudes Get A Grip On Themselves And Shape Up.

It Is Impossible To Experience One's Death Objectively And Still Carry A Tune.

When A Doctor Makes A Mistake, It's Best To Bury The Subject.

God Is Either Cruel Or Incompetent.

I Idolized Superman When I Was Younger. I Thought He And I Had A Lot In Common. He Was Always Going Into Phonebooths And Taking Off All His Clothes.

Trending Author

Kay Redfield Jamison

Jamie Lee Curtis

M. F. K. Fisher

Eugene H. Peterson

Category