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Drama, It Would Be As If You Wrote Some Poetry. You'd Run The Risk Of Being Embarrassed If People Read It, Because You're Pouring Your Heart Out And You're Not Mitigating It With Any Humor Or Anything.

-Woody Allen

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Drama, It Would Be

Woody Allen

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Drama, It Would Be As If You Wrote Some Poetry. You'd Run The Risk Of Being Embarrassed If People Read It, Because You're Pouring Your Heart Out And You're Not Mitigating It With Any Humor Or Anything.

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I Have A Great Admiration For English Actors And Actresses And Have Used Them At Every Opportunity Over The Years, But Now I Won't Have To Import Them To New York.

The Great Roe Is A Mythological Beast With The Head Of A Lion And The Body Of A Lion, Though Not The Same Lion.

Confidence Is What You Have Before You Understand The Problem.

Retirement Is A Very Subjective Thing. There Are Guys I Know Who Retire And They're Very Happy And They Never Miss Work At All. I Can't See Myself Retiring And Fondling A Dog Every Day. I Like To Get Up And Work And Go Out. I Have Too Much Energy Or Too Much Nervous Anxiety Or Something. So I Don't See Myself Retiring. Maybe I Will Suddenly Get A Stroke Or A Heart Attack And I Will Be Forced To Retire, But If My Health Holds Out I Don't Expect To Retire.

More Than At Any Other Time In History, Mankind Faces A Crossroads. One Path Leads To Despair And Utter Hopelessness. The Other, To Total Extinction. Let Us Pray We Have The Wisdom To Choose Correctly. I Speak, By The Way, Not With Any Sense Of Futility, But With A Panicky Conviction Of The Absolute Meaninglessness Of Existence Which Could Easily Be Misinterpreted As Pessimism. It Is Not. It Is Merely A Healthy Concern For The Predicament Of Modern Man.

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.

I'm Generally Not A Social Dramatist Or Comedy Writer. My Interests Have Always Been More In Psychological Stories Or Personal Relations And Comic Ideas.

Umlaut Snaps Around And We Cut To A Blond Apparition In Her Early Twenties, Clearly Descended From Olympus By Way Of Hugh Hefner's Mansion.

Am I My Brother's Keeper? Yes. Interestingly, In My Case, I Share That Honor With The Prospect Park Zoo.

Don't Think Of Death As An Ending. Think Of It As A Really Effective Way Of Cutting Down Your Expenses.

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

Every Hooker I Ever Speak To Tells Me That It Beats The Hell Out Of Waitressing.

Human Existence Is A Brutal Experience To Me... It's A Brutal, Meaningless Experience - An Agonizing, Meaningless Experience With Some Oases, Delight, Some Charm And Peace, But These Are Just Small Oases. Overall, It Is A Brutal, Terrible Experience, And So It Salvation Is What Can You Do To Alleviate The Agony Of The Human Condition, The Human Predicament? That Is What Interests Me The Most.

If You Are Not Failing Now And Again, Its A Sign You Are Not Doing Anything Very Innovative

They Were Doing The Dying Swan At The Ballet. And There Was A Rumor That Some Bookmarkers Had Drifted Into Town From Upstate New York And That They Had Fixed The Bullet. There Was A Lot Of Money Bet On The Swan To Live.

While We're Waiting For A Cab I'll Give You Your Lesson For Today. Don't Listen To What Your Teachers Tell Ya, You Know. Don't Pay Attention. Just, Just See What They Look Like And That's How You'll Know What Life Is Really Gonna Be Like.

I Feel That Humor, Just Like Fred Astaire Dance Numbers Or These Lightweight Musicals, Gives You A Little Oasis. You Are In This Horrible World And For An Hour And A Half You Duck Into A Dark Room And It's Air-conditioned And The Sun Is Not Blinding You And You Leave The Terror Of The Universe Behind And You Are Completely Transported Into An Escapist Situation. The Women Are Beautiful, The Men Are Witty And Heroic, Nobody Has Terrible Problems And This Is A Delightful Escapist Thing, And You Leave The Theater Refreshed.

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

Fictional Character

I Don't Believe In An Afterlife, But I'm Taking An Extra Pair Of Underwear Just In Case.

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.

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 Don't Believe In God. Just Try Getting A Plumber On The Weekend.

Culturally Speaking, I Was Raised In A Jewish Household. In Addition To The Religious Side Of It, I Was Taught Respect For Books And Learning And The Higher Professions Like Medicine And Law And Teaching.

Death Is An Acquired Trait.

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

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

Dying Is Like Making Love, Except You Don't Get Naseous Afterwards.

Comedy Just Pokes At Problems, Rarely Confronts Them Squarely. Drama Is Like A Plate Of Meat And Potatoes, Comedy Is Rather The Dessert, A Bit Like Meringue.

If My Films Make One More Person Miserable, I'll Feel I Have Done My Job.

I Do The Movies Just For Myself Like An Institutionalized Person Who Basket-weaves. Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers. I Don't Care About The Films. I Don't Care If They're Flushed Down The Toilet After I Die.

There Have Been Times When I've Thought About It - But With My Luck It Would Probably Turn Out To Be Only A Temporary Solution.

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.

Marriage Is The Death Of Hope.

Life Is Short. Short, And Not About Anything Except What You Can Touch And What Touches You.

I Think [aging] Has Nothing To Recommend It. You Don't Gain Any Wisdom As The Years Go By. You Fall Apart, Is What Happens. People Try And Put A Nice Varnish On It, And Say, Well, You Mellow. You Come To Understand Life And Accept Things. But You'd Trade All Of That For Being 35 Again.

The True Test Of Maturity Is Not How Old A Person Is But How He Reacts To Awakening In The Mid-town Area In His Shorts.

Until You've Been Kissed On A Rainy Parisian Afternoon - You've Never Been Kissed.

Never Been Kissed

When I Asked My Mother Where Babies Came From, She Thought I Said Rabies. She Said You Get Them From Being Bitten By A Dog. The Next Week, A Woman On My Block Gave Birth To Triplets... I Thought She'd Been Bitten By A Great Dane.

Should I Marry W? Not If She Won't Tell Me The Other Letters In Her Name. And What About Her Career? How Can I Ask A Woman Of Her Beauty To Give Up The Roller Derby? Decisions...

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

One Filmmaker Makes Films That Are Deep, Intellectual, Profound And Confrontational. And The Other One Makes Purely Vacuous, Escapist Films. I'm Not Sure The One Who Makes Escapist Films Is Making A Poorer Contribution Than The One Who Makes The Deeper Films.

A Wife Lasts Only For The Length Of The Marriage, But An Ex-wife Is There For The Rest Of Your Life.

Everyone Wants To Get Out Of Living Where They're Living Now, Because Life Is A Pretty Tough Proposition And Not Much Fun. But When You Think Back To Earlier Times, You Only Extrapolate The Nice Things.

Love Is Too Weak A Word For What I Feel - I Luuurve You, You Know, I Loave You, I Luff You, Two F's, Yes.

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.

No, No, I'm A Lowbrow. I Read [dostoevsky] More Out Of Obligation Than Enjoyment. For Enjoyment, For Me, It's A Beer And The Football Game.

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out To Get You.

My Mind Can Never Know My Body, Although It Has Become Quite Friendly With My Legs.

Existence For Eternity Could Get A Little Boring... Especially Towards The End.

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.

Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going? Is There Possibility Of A Group Discount?

When It Comes To Sex There Are Certain Things That Should Always Be Left Unknown, And With My Luck, They Probably Will Be.

It Is Impossible To Travel Faster Than Light, And Certainly Not Desirable, As One’s Hat Keeps Blowing Off.

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

Writing Is Great Because In The Writing You Never Have To... First Of All You Never Have To Leave Your Home. And You Never Have To Meet The Test Of Reality When You're Writing.

Money Is Not Everything, But It Is Better Than Having One's Health.

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.

For A While We Pondered Whether To Take A Vacation Or Get A Divorce. We Decided That A Trip To Bermuda Is Over In Two Weeks, But A Divorce Is Something You Always Have.

I'm Very Proud Of My Gold Pocket Watch. My Grandfather, On His Deathbed, Sold Me This Watch.

When You Travel Around The Country, You See What A Tough Town New York Is: Rude, Competitive, A Town Where Good, Logical Ideas Are Ignored In Favor Of Unworkable Ones. And Yet, All These Other Towns Are So Dead And Boring Compared To New York.

I Keep Wondering If There Is An Afterlife, And If There Is Will They Be Able To Break A Twenty?

When You Work From City To City Or Country To Country, You Work The Same Way; The Working Method Is The Same.

Life Is Unresolved, Confusing, Bewildering, Puzzling, Ambiguous. You Don't Really Know What's Going To Happen. The Future Is Uncertain For Everybody.

I Don't Own A Computer. I've Never Seen Anything Online At All - Nothing. I Don't Own A Word Processor. I Have None Of That Stuff. It's Not An Act Of Rebellion. I'm Just Not A Gadget Person.

I Don't Respond Well To Mellow, You Know What I Mean, I Have A Tendency To... If I Get Too Mellow, I Ripen And Then Rot.

The Whole Concept Of Awards Is Silly. I Cannot Abide By The Judgment Of Other People, Because If You Accept It When They Say You Deserve An Award, Then You Have To Accept It When They Say You Don't.

What If Nothing Exists And We're All In Somebody's Dream?

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.

Everything Is Controlled By A Small Evil Group To Which, Unfortunately, No One We Know Belongs.

Nietzsche Says That We Will Live The Same Life, Over And Over Again. God - I'll Have To Sit Through The Ice Capades Again.

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

I Do Feel It's Important To Have Some Kind Of Faith In Something, But [it Is] Impossible For Many Of Us. I Personally Don't Have Any Faith In Anything, But It's Great If You Can.

Therefore, To Be Unhappy One Must Love, Or Love To Suffer, Or Suffer From Too Much Happiness. I Hope You're Getting This Down.

My Grandfather Was A Very Insignificant Man, Actually. At His Funeral His Hearse Followed The Other Cars.

A Deranged Person Is Supposed To Have The Strength Of Ten Men. I Have The Strength Of One Small Boy... With Polio.

I Have No Regard For That Kind Of Ceremony. I Just Don't Think They Know What They're Doing. When You See Who Wins Those Things-or Who Doesn't Win Them-you Can See How Meaningless This Oscar Thing Is.

When I Was A Young Man, My Friends And I And All Of Us In New York Were Very Influenced By French Cinema. French Cinema Played An Enormous Influence On Those Of Us Who Wanted To Be Filmmakers.

In My Next Life I Want To Live Backwards. Start Out Dead And Finish Off As An Orgasm.

Another Good Thing About Being Poor Is That When You Are Seventy Your Children Will Not Have You Declared Legally Insane In Order To Gain Control Of Your Estate.

The Comedies Are Not A Million Laughs On The Set. Its Business And The Dramas Are Business As Well, Really. When I'm Writing It I Struggle More With Drama Because I Started Out In Comedy.

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.

Sex And Death. Two Things That Come But Once In My Lifetime, But At Least After Death You're Not Nauseous.

I Love Nature, I Just Don't Want To Get Any Of It On Me.

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

Human Beings Are Divided Into Mind And Body. The Mind Embraces All The Nobler Aspirations, Like Poetry And Philosophy, But The Body Has All The Fun.

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.

I Don't Want To Live Forever Through My Work. I Want To Live Forever By Not Dying.

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

I Don't Know What The Hell I'm Doing Here. I'm 237 Years Old, I Should Be Collecting Social Security.

Sex On Twitter Can't Hurt You - Unless You Fall Off.

Don't Knock Masturbation. It's Sex With Someone I Love.

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

I Said This To My Daughter, If You Don't Practice The Guitar, When You Get Older You Wouldn't Be Able To Play It. It's That Simple. If You Want To Play The Guitar, You Put A Half Hour In Everyday, But You Have To Do It.

The Important Thing, I Think, Is Not To Be Bitter. You Know, If It Turns Out That There Is A God, I Don't Think That He's Evil. I Think That The Worst Thing You Could Say About Him Is That Basically He's An Underachiever. After All, You Know, There Are Worse Things In Life Than Death.

I'll Work By Myself For Years And Then I'll Think It'll Be Fun To Et One Of My Friends Like Marshall Brickman Or Doug Mcgrath Into A Room And Not Be Alone For The Writing Of The Thing; To Have The Pleasure Of Taking Walks And Get Lunch Together; Its Sort Of A Fun Process And Then I Do It And Then I Get Back On My Own For A While Until I Feel The Need To Do It Again.

There's No Way To Prove That There Is No God. You Just Have To Take It On Faith.

There Is No God

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

History Is The Same Thing Over And Over Again.

Fitness Motivational

Temporary Insanity

Last Year I Had Difficulty With My Income Tax. I Tried To Take My Analyst Off As A Business Deduction. The Government Said It Was Entertainment. We Compromised Finally And Made It A Religious Contribution.

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.

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

I Never Have An Alter Ego In The Movies. That's A Fiction That The Press Has Made Up Over The Years, And It's Fun To Write That. It Gives Them Something To Write.

But It Was I - Yes I - Who Discovered The Link Between Excessive Masturbation And Entry Into Politics!

Talent Is Luck. The Important Thing In Life Is Courage.

I'm A Nice Person! I Have Healthy Life Drives And Goals! I Don't Drink, I Don't Smoke. I Would Never Force Myself Sexually On A Blind Person!

How The Hell Do I Know Why There Were Nazis? I Don't Know How The Can-opener Works.

I Want To Return To The Womb, Anyone's.

I Think That The Tendency For Most People Is To Fall Back On A Comic Interpretation Of Things Because Things Are So Sad, So Terrible. If You Didn't Laugh You'd Kill Yourself. But The Truth Of The Matter Is That Existence In General Is Very Very Tragic, Very Very Sad, Very Brutal And Very Unhappy.

Where I Grew Up In Brooklyn, Nobody Committed Suicide. Everyone Was Too Unhappy.

It Figures You've Got To Hate Yourself If You've Got Any Integrity At All.

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

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

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

Do I Believe In God? I Did Until Mother's Accident. She Fell On Some Meat Loaf And It Penetrated Her Spleen.

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

A "bay Area Bisexual" Told Me I Didn't Quite Coincide With Either Of Her Desires.

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

I Don't Know What I Want, But I Know What I Don't Want

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

I Tended To Place My Wife Under A Pedestal.

Honey, There's A Spider In Your Bathroom The Size Of A Buick.

I Was A Smart Kid And I Was Not Understood By My Parents.

Notes For A Ballet, The Spell: ... Suddenly Sigmund Hears The Flutter Of Wings, And A Group Of Wild Swans Flies Across The Moon ... Sigmund Is Astounded To See That Their Leader Is Part Swan And Part Woman - Unfortunately, Divided Lengthwise. She Enchants Sigmund, Who Is Careful Not To Make Any Poultry Jokes.

I Read In Self-defense.

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.

Let's Say There Was No Terrorism Whatsoever And We Were All Very Nice To One Another And We Were All Kind, We Still Would Be Faced With An Extremely Cruel And Hostile Universe And Existence And So I'm A Great Pessimist And I Feel That It's Impossible Really To Be Happy, And That The Best You Can Hope For Is To Be Distracted.

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

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.

I Was In Analysis For Years Because Of A Traumatic Childhood; I Was Breast-fed Through Falsies.

Harvard Makes Mistakes Too, You Know. Kissinger Taught There.

People Still Have Existential Anxiety. It Just May Not Be Expressed In Hebraic Idiom.

The Great Question Of Philosophy Remains: If Life Is Meaningless, What Can Be Done About Alphabet Soup?

If I Could Only See One Miracle, Just One Miracle. Like A Burning Bush, Or The Seas Part, Or My Uncle Sasha Pick Up A Check.

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

Twenty-one Years Ago, When I First Heard Mia Farrow Had Accused Me Of Child Molestation, I Found The Idea So Ludicrous I Didn't Give It A Second Thought. We Were Involved In A Terribly Acrimonious Breakup, With Great Enmity Between Us And A Custody Battle Slowly Gathering Energy. The Self-serving Transparency Of Her Malevolence Seemed So Obvious I Didn't Even Hire A Lawyer To Defend Myself. It Was My Show Business Attorney Who Told Me She Was Bringing The Accusation To The Police And I Would Need A Criminal Lawyer.

I Feel That Life Is Divided Into The Horrible And The Miserable. That's The Two Categories. The Horrible Are Like, I Don't Know, Terminal Cases, You Know, And Blind People, Crippled. I Don't Know How They Get Through Life. It's Amazing To Me. And The Miserable Is Everyone Else. So You Should Be Thankful That You're Miserable, Because That's Very Lucky, To Be Miserable.

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

You Can't Work At A Relationship; You Can't Control It. You Have To Be Lucky And Go Through Your Life. If You Are Not Lucky You Have To Be Prepared For Some Degree Of Suffering. That's Why Most Relationships Are Very Difficult And Have Some Degree Of Pain. People Stay Together Because Of Inertia, They Don't Have The Energy. Because They Are Frightened Of Being Lonely, Or They Have Children.

In The Shower, With The Hot Water Coming Down, You've Left The Real World Behind, And Very Frequently Things Open Up For You. It's The Change Of Venue, The Unblocking The Attempt To Force The Ideas That's Crippling You When You're Trying To Write.

Right Now It's Only A Notion, But I Think I Can Get The Money To Make It Into A Concept, And Later Turn It Into An Idea.

I Keep Getting More And More Ambitious. Over The Years, To Some Degree, In Some Areas, I Feel I've Grown. In Some Areas, I Made A Fool Of Myself. In Some Areas, I Think I Can Still Do Some Funny Things.

Sex Alleviates Tension. Love Causes It.

What Advice Would I Give The Average Homeowner To Protect Himself Against Burglars? Well, The First Thing Is To Keep A Light On In The House When You Go Out. It Must Be At Least A Sixty-watt Bulb; Anything Less And The Burglar Will Ransack The House, Out Of Contempt For The Wattage.

I Don't Have To 'freedom-kiss' My Wife When What I Really Want To Do Is French-kiss Her.

I Don't Like Theatrical Actors And Actresses. I Like People That Talk Like Real Human Beings.

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

There Are Three Rings Involved With Marriage. The Engagement Ring, The Wedding Ring, And The Suffering.

I Myself Don't Like To Speak To The Actors At All. I Like To Hire Great People And Let Them Do Their Thing. I Don't Like To Speak To Them. I Don't Like To Have Lunch With Them. I Don't Like To Socialize With Them. I Don't Like To Hear Their Ideas.

I Think, On Both Sides Of The Camera Or The Novel: Distraction. I'm Obsessed With: Can I Get This Actress Or My Third Act To Work? I'm Distracted. I'm Interested In That So I Don't Sit Home And Think, "gee, Life Is Meaningless. We're All Going To Die. The Universe Is Pulling Apart At Breakneck Speed."

Well, If I Don't Get At Least 16 Hours, I'm A Basket Case.

If God Is Everywhere, I Had Concluded, Then He Is In Food. Therefore, The More I Ate The Godlier I Would Become. Impelled By This New Religious Fervor, I Glutted Myself Like A Fanatic.

I, Interestingly, Had Dated A Woman In The Eisenhower Administration Briefly, And It Was Ironic To Me 'cause I Was Trying To Do Toher What Eisenhower Has Been Doing To The Country For The Last Eight Years.

I Loathed Every Day And Regret Every Moment I Spent In A School.

Man Consists Of Two Parts, His Mind And His Body, Only The Body Has More Fun.

I Am Plagued By Doubts.

If Man Were Immortal, Do You Realize What His Meat Bills Would Be?

The Process Of Making Films Is So Technically Demanding That It's A Distraction. You Don't Spend Your Time Thinking About The Philosophical Content, Which Is Often Very Depressing.

Ads Answered Out Of Desperation In The New York Review Of Books Proved Equally Futile As…the 'bay Area Bisexual' Told Me I Didn't Quite Coincide With Either Of Her Desires.

What Has Gotten Into You Lately? Save A Little Craziness For Menopause!

Our Love, Our Love Will Last Forever. It's Forever But It Just Doesn't Work. That's Why It Will Always Be Romantic Because It Can Not Be Complete.

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.

Once The Movie's Over, There's Not Much Point. When The Thing Is Edited, Mixed, And Color-corrected, And You've Finished It... In My Case, I Never Read Anything About It, I Never Think About It.

Some Drink Deeply From The River Of Knowledge. Others Only Gargle.

My Experience Creatively Is Different Than My Experience In Life, For, As My Father Would Say, The Simple Reason That You Can't Get Hurt When Everything Goes Wrong Creatively.

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

How Am I Immature? Intellectually, Emotionally, And Sexually. Yeah, But In What Other Ways?

Don't Worry, I Know Almost Exactly What I'm Doing.

I Don't Inhale Because It Gives You Cancer, But I Look So Incredibly Handsome With A Cigarette That I Can't Not Hold One.

Sylvia Plath. Interesting Poetess Whose Tragic Suicide Was Misinterpreted As Romantic By The College-girl Mentality.

I Got A Divorce Because My Ex-wife Left Me For Another Woman.

I Write The Script; Nobody Sees It, Not The People That Put The Money In The Picture. I Cast Who I Want, And Make The Film. That's Why I've Always Felt The Only Thing Standing Between Me And Greatness, Is Me. There's No Excuse For Me Not To Be Great Except That I'm Not.

The Prison Psychiatrist Asked Me If I Thought Sex Was Dirty. I Told Him Only When It's Done Right.

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.

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

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.

I Feel About New York As A Child Whose Father Is A Bank Robber. Not Perfect, But I Still Love Him.

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.

I Loathed Every Day And Regret Every Day I Spent In School. I Like To Be Taught To Read And Write And Add And Then Be Left Alone.

I've Always Believed That Thoughtful People Don't Really Take The Tabloids Seriously. They're Basically A Form Of Entertainment. I Enjoy Them As Much As The Next New Yorker.

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

I Once Stole A Pornographic Book That Was Printed In Braille. I Used To Rub The Dirty Parts.

Honey, You're The One Who Stopped Sleeping With Me, Ok? It'll Be A Year Come April 20th. I Remember The Date Exactly, Because It Was Hitler's Birthday

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

Curiosity, That's What Kills Us. Not Muggers Or All That Bullshit About The Ozone Layer. It's Our Own Hearts And Minds.

In Real Life, Keaton Believes In God. But She Also Believes That The Radio Works Because There Are Tiny People Inside It.

If You're Born With A Gift, To Behave Like It's An Achievement Is Not Right.

You Can Learn Technological Things, You Can Learn About Specific Things, But The Real Problems That People Deal With In Any Subject, Existential Subjects Or Romantic Subjects, You Never Learn Anything. So You Make A Fool Of Yourself When You're 20, You Make A Fool Of Yourself At 40, At 60 At 80. The Ancient Greeks Were Dealing With These Problems. They Screwed Up All The Time. People Do Now.

Marriage? That's For Life! It's Like Cement!

I'm Not A Drinker, My Body Won't Tolerate...eh...spirits, Really. I Had Two Martinis New Years Eve And I Tried To Hi-jack An Elevator And Fly It To Cuba.

I Never Start Editing A Film Until It's Completely Shot; I Don't Edit Along The Way, Ever. When It's Finished I Come In Here [screening Room] And We Start With Reel One, Scene One And Start Editing Shot By Shot By Shot Until We're Finished.

That’s One Of The Nice Things About Writing, Or Any Art; If The Thing’s Real, It Just Lives. All The Attendant Hoopla About It, The Success Over It Or The Critical Rejection—none Of That Really Matters. In The End, The Thing Will Survive Or Not On Its Own Merits. Not That Immortality Via Art Is Any Big Deal. Truffaut Died, And We All Felt Awful About It, And There Were The Appropriate Eulogies, And His Wonderful Films Live On. But It’s Not Much Help To Truffaut.

The French Make Two Mistakes About Me. They Think I'm An Intellectual Because I Wear These Glasses And They Think I'm An Artist Because My Films Lose Money.

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.

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

I Think Hollywood Has Gone In A Disastrous Path. It's Terrible. The Years Of Cinema That Were Great Were The '30s, '40s, Not So Much The '50s...but Then The Foreign Films Took Over And It Was A Great Age Of Cinema As American Directors Were Influenced By Them And That Fueled The '50s And '60s And '70s.

Humorists Always Sit At The Children's Table.

There Are Worse Things In Life Than Death. Have You Ever Spent An Evening With An Insurance Salesman?

Cynicism Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling.

I'm A Big Believer In Supporting The Action On Film With The Appropriate Music. It Covers A Multitude Of Sins. It's Gotten Me Out Of A Lot Of Jams, Over The Years. So, Music For Me Is A Very Big Thing In Films And I Use It Unashamedly.

I Can Understand That An Audience, Buying A Ticket To See A Picture Of Mine, Wants To See Something Funny Because They Feel Confident That At Least I Have A Fighting Chance To Make A Funny Film When I Make A Film, Whereas If I Make A Dramatic Film There's One Chance In A Thousand That It's Really Going To Come Out Great, So I Understand How They Feel About That And They're Completely Right.

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Alejo Carpentier

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