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[...] 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.

-Woody Allen

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[...] I've Come To

Woody Allen

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[...] 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.

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More From Woody Allen

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

What I Do Know About Physics Is That To A Man Standing On The Shore, Time Passes Quicker Than To A Man On A Boat - Especially If The Man On The Boat Is With His Wife.

When I Was Born My Mother Was Terribly Disappointed. Not That She Wanted A Girl - She Wanted A Divorce.

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.

You Make Films Whether They're Dramas Or Comedies About Neurotic People. Flawed People. Interesting Personality Traits. To Make Them About Calm, Stable Untroubled People Isn't Interesting.

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

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

As I Got More Confident, I Was Able To Let Actors Improvise, And Do Long Takes. It's 10%, 5% You Learn And Experience. The Rest You Just Have Or You Don't Have.

I Can't Do Anything To Death, Doctor's Orders.

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

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

Dissatisfaction

I Never Think I Feel Cynical In General. Cynical Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling. I Feel There's A Gigantic Amount Of Injustice And Overt Crime Every Day In The World, From Emotional Crimes To International Crimes, And It Often Carries Rewards.

American Films, It's A Money-making Industry. And In France, You Can Find Great Respect For Cinema As Art.

What' S The Matter With Me? Why Can't I Be Cool?

Some Men Are Heterosexual And Some Men Are Bisexual And Some Men Don't Think About Sex At All ... You Know, They Become Lawyers.

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

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.

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

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

When I First Started, There Were Writers That I Looked Up To That I Felt Very Influenced By And Very Respectful Toward Their Work And Their Opinion Of My Work.

Sun Is Bad For You. Everything Our Parents Said Was Good Is Bad. Sun, Milk, Red Meat...college.

Reality May Not Be The Best Of All Possible Worlds, But It's Still The Only Place Where You Can Get A Decent Steak.

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

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

Nothing Like A Little Post-traumatic Stress Disorder To Make Your Day Complete.

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

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.

I've Gained No Wisdom, No Insight, No Mellowing. I Would Make All The Same Mistakes Again, Today.

There Are Two Important Things In The World, The First Is Sex. The Other Isn't All That Important.

When The Academy Called, I Panicked. I Thought They Might Want Their Oscars Back And The Pawn Shop Has Been Out Of Business For A While.

I Don't Want To Be Immortal Through My Works. I Want To Be Immortal By Not Dying.

When I Naturally Write A Story And I Feel That The Guy Is Sitting Across The Table From The Girl And Flirting With Her... I Think, 'god, That Can't Be Me' Because I'm Just Too Old For That Part. You Need A 30-year-old Or A 35-year-old For That Part. And So I've Given Myself Less And Less Roles.

We Are All Interested In The Future, For That Is Where You And I Are Going To Spend The Rest Of Our Lives.

Books And Movies

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.

You Are Always A Comedian By Default. You Are This Way Because You've Been Forced To Be This Way, But It Is Better To Be The Hero. So If You Can Be A Persona, The Great One Of My Lifetime Of Course Was And Is Marlon Brando.

The Most Important Words In The English Language Are Not 'i Love You' But 'it's Benign.'

I Spend A Lot Of Time Idly. I Go To Sporting Events, Play My Clarinet. I Practise. But If You Work Every Day, A Certain Amount On A Steady Basis, The Work Accumulates.

For Some Reason It Gives People Pleasure To Equate The Life Of Certain Movie Actors Or Actresses With Their Actual Lives.

I Asked The Girl If She Could Bring A Sister For Me. She Did. Sister Maria Teresa. It Was A Very Slow Evening. We Discussed The New Testament. We Agreed That He Was Very Well Adjusted For An Only Child.

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.

The Baby Is Fine. The Only Problem Is That He Looks Like Edward G. Robinson.

My Grandfather Had A Wonderful Funeral... On The Buffet Table There Was A Replica Of The Deceased In Potato Salad.

I Don't Want To Move To A City Where The Only Cultural Advantage Is Being Able To Make A Right Turn On A Red Light.

To Love Is To Suffer. To Avoid Suffering One Must Not Love. But Then One Suffers From Not Loving. Therefore, To Love Is To Suffer; Not To Love Is To Suffer; To Suffer Is To Suffer. To Be Happy Is To Love. To Be Happy, Then, Is To Suffer, But Suffering Makes One Unhappy. Therefore, To Be Happy One Must Love Or Love To Suffer Or Suffer From Too Much Happiness.

I Could Turn On My Radio In The Morning When I Was Getting Dressed For School And Hear Frank Sinatra And Duke Ellington And Benny Goodman And Think This Is The Music. Now That Music Is Art. Ellington Is Art. At That Time It Was Just What You Heard On The Radio. Cole Porter Was Just A Guy Who Wrote Pretty Songs And Billie Holliday Would Sing Them.

I'm Astounded By People Who Want To 'know' The Universe When It's Hard Enough To Find Your Way Around Chinatown.

My Brain? It's My Second Favorite Organ!

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

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.

I Think If You Have A Comic Perspective, Almost Anything That Happens You Tend To Put Through A Comic Filter. It's A Way Of Coping In The Short Term, But Has No Long Term Effect And Requires Constant, Endless Renewal. Hence People Talk Of Comics Who Are "always On." It's Like Constantly Drugging Your Sensibility So You Can Get By With Less Pain.

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

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

Learning From Mistakes

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

Of All The Wonders Of Nature, A Tree In Summer Is Perhaps The Most Remarkable; With The Possible Exception Of A Moose Singing 'embraceable You' In Spats.

There's Nothing Wrong With You That A Little Prozac And A Polo Mallet Can't Cure.

Dear Mom And Dad, Leave $50,000 In A Bag Under The Bridge On Decatur Street. If There Is No Bridge On Decatur Street, Please Build One.

There Is An Advantage In Having A Routine And Working With The Same People When You Can And In Writing As A Regular Thing And Filming As A Regular Thing. That Routine Pays Off For You. You Get A Lot Of Productivity That Way, Rather Than Sitting Around Waiting For Inspiration And Waiting For The Perfect Thing To Happen. I Would Be Much Less Productive That Way.

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

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 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.

When I'm Writing Something, If There's A Part That's Good For Me, Then I'll Play It. Otherwise, I Don't. And I Notice That There Are Less And Less Parts For Me In My Own Writing.

This Is My Perspective And Has Always Been My Perspective On Life: I Have A Very Grim, Pessimistic View Of It. I Always Have, Since I Was A Little Boy. It Hasn't Gotten Worse With Age Or Anything. I Do Feel That It's A Grim, Painful, Nightmarish, Meaningless Experience, And That The Only Way That You Can Be Happy Is If You Tell Yourself Some Lies And Deceive Yourself.

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.

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.

Is Old Age Really So Terrible? Not If You've Brushed Your Teeth Faithfully.

Marriage Is The Death Of Hope.

I Don't Mind Dying... As Long As I Don't Have To Be There When It Happens.

Life's Hard, Then You Die.

Meaningful Death

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.

These Were Always Obsessions Of Mine, Even As A Very Young Child. These Were Things That Interested Me As The Years Went On. My Friends Were More Preoccupied With Social Issues - Issues Such As Abortion, Racial Discrimination, And Communism - And Those Issues Just Never Caught My Interest. Of Course They Mattered To Me As A Citizen To Some Degree...but They Never Really Caught My Attention Artistically.

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.

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

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.

The Movie Is Usually, For Me, Something Organic That Grows All The Time. I Sit Home And Write It, And I'm In An Isolated, Four-walled Environment, And I Don't Know What's Going On. I Just Write It, And It's Appearing In My Head In Some Idealized Way Where Every Single Moment Works, And Every Little Thing Is Perfect, Because It's In My Head.

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

I Was A Nervous Child, I Was A Bedwetter. I Used To Sleep With An Electric Blanket And I Was Constantly Electrocuting Myself.

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

I Didn't Believe In Reincarnation In My Past Life, And I Still Don't.

The Wicked At Heart Probably Know Something.

Geez, I Should Stop Ruining My Life Searching For Answers I'm Never Gonna Get, And Just Enjoy It While It Lasts.

Enjoy It While It Lasts

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

Never Been Kissed

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.

Why Ruin A Good Story With The Truth?

Life Is Horrible, But It Is Not Relentlessly Black From Wire To Wire. You Can Sit Down And Hear A Mozart Symphony, Or You Can Watch The Marx Brothers, And This Will Give You A Pleasant Escape For A While. And That Is About The Best That You Can Do.

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.

Is It Better To Be The Lover Or The Loved One? Neither, If Your Cholesterol Is Over Six Hundred. By Love, Of Course, I Refer To Romantic Love -- The Love Between Man And Woman, Rather Than Between Mother And Child, Or A Boy And His Dog, Or Two Headwaiters.

I Know Of Only Six Genuine Comic Geniuses In Movie History; Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx & Harpo Marx, Peter Sellers, And W.c. Fields.

All Literature Is A Footnote To Faust. I Have No Idea What I Mean By That.

I Came Home One Night, Some Month Ago, And I Went To The Closet In My Bedroom...and A Moth Ate My Sports Jacket. He Was Laying On The Floor, Nauseous, Y'know.

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

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.

I'm Short Enough And Ugly Enough To Succeed On My Own.

Man Was Made In God`s Image. Do You Really Think God Has Red Hair And Glasses?

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

Life Is Like A Concentration Camp... You Can't Leave Without Dying.

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

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

Error, No Keyboard. Press F1 To Continue.

The Film Studios Learned To Our Dismay But To Their Pleasure That If They Spent $200 Million Making A Film They Could Make Half A Billion On It. So They Were Not Interested Anymore In Quality Films... They Can't Afford To Be That Risky At Those Prices. Consequently You're Getting A Lot Of Remakes, Sequels, Dopey Comedies Full Of Toilet Jokes...

I Took A Puff Of The Wrong Cigarette At A Fraternity Dance Once, And The Cops Had To Get Me, Y'know. I Broke Two Teeth Trying To Give A Hickie To The Statue Of Liberty.

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

All I Have In My Life Is My Imagination

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.

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.

I've Always Liked, Someday The Lamb Will Lay By The Lion.... But It Won't Get Much Sleep.

How Does Gravity Work? And If It Were To Cease Suddenly, Would Certain Restaurants Still Require A Jacket?

Every Success Is Built On The Ability To Do Better Than Good Enough. As You Climb The Ladder Of Success, Be Sure It's Leaning Against The Right Building. Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up.

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 Universe Is] Haphazard, Morally Neutral, And Unimaginably Violent.

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

Why Not? Life Is Short, Life Is Dull, Life Is Full Of Pain - And This Is A Chance For Something Special.

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.

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

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.

Child Molestation Is A Touchy Subject... Read The Papers! Half The Country's Doing It!

I Recently Turned 60. Practically A Third Of My Life Is Over.

I Wish I Was Writing Something Much More Heavy Each Time I Did A Film, And That The Comedies Just Occasionally Come Out. But Unfortunately You're Stuck With What You're Born With.

Is There A Separation Between Body And Mind, And If So Which Is It Better To Have?

I Was The Captain Of The Latent Paranoid Softball Team. We Used To Play All The Neurotics On Sunday Morning. Nailbiters Against The Bedwetters, And If You've Never Seen Neurotics Play Softball, It's Really Funny. I Used To Steal Second Base, And Feel Guilty And Go Back.

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

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

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

Confidence Is What You Have Before You Understand The Problem.

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

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.

. . . They Confuse Everything I Do With My Life.

Take The Money And Run.

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

Cynicism Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling.

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

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

Death Is An Acquired Trait.

If 90% Of Success In Life Is Showing Up, The Other 10% Depends On What You're Showing Up For.

You're So Good Looking I Can Barely Keep My Eyes On The Meter.

The Heart Wants What It Wants.

Inspirational Love

90 Per Cent Of Success Is Turning Up.

In Real Life I'm Not The Character I Play In My Films. I'm Reasonably Competent, I Work Very Hard, I'm Disciplined, I Lead A Very Middle Class Life. I Work In The Mornings, I Have Lunch, I Practise My Clarinet, I Go To The Movies, I Eat Out In Restaurants Or Watch Ball Games On Television Or At The Ball Games.

If My Films Don't Show A Profit, I Know I'm Doing Something Right.

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!

I Foresee Death By Culture Shock.

Usually, You Hire People That You Think Are Wonderful.

I Always Write The Same Way. I Always Write With A Yellow Pad And A Ballpoint Pen On My Bed. And Then I Go And Type It Up Afterwards. I've Always Done That. Those Things Become Habitual.

Please Forgive Me. My Pedicurist Had A Stroke. She Fell Forward Onto The Orange Stick And Plunged It Into My Toe. It Required Bandaging.

Inertia Accounts For Two-thirds Of Marriages. But Love Accounts For The Other Third.

I Think Being Funny Is Not Anyone's First Choice.

My Luck Is Getting Worse And Worse. Last Night, For Instance, I Was Mugged By A Quaker.

At The Trial Stubbs Chose To Act As His Own Lawyer, But A Conflict Over His Fee Led To Ill Feelings.

This Year I'm A Star, But What Will I Be Next Year? A Black Hole?

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.

You Will Notice That What We Are Aiming At When We Fall In Love Is A Very Strange Paradox. The Paradox Consists Of The Fact That, When We Fall In Love, We Are Seeking To Re-find All Or Some Of The People To Whom We Were Attached As Children. On The Other Hand, We Ask Our Beloved To Correct All Of The Wrongs That These Early Parents Or Siblings Inflicted Upon Us. So That Love Contains In It The Contradiction: The Attempt To Return To The Past And The Attempt To Undo The Past.

Falling In Love

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

I Don't Believe In Competition For Artistic Things. I Just Like The Atmosphere Of The Cannes Festival. I Don't Want To Win Anything Or Lose Anything.

History Is The Same Thing Over And Over Again.

Fitness Motivational

Temporary Insanity

I Have One Last Request. Don't Use Embalming Fluid On Me; I Want To Be Stuffed With Crab Meat.

You Mellow Too Much You Ripen And Rot.

The Only Thing Standing Between Me And Greatness Is Me.

Astronomers Say The Universe Is Finite, Which Is A Comforting Thought For Those People Who Can't Remember Where They Leave Things.

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.

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

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

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

I Don't Know Enough To Be Incompetent.

You Make A Film And Always Hope You're Going Make "citizen Kane" Or "the Bicycle Thief." You Make The Film, And For One Reason Or Another, One Clicks And One Doesn't, But It's Out Of Your Control Completely.

I Can Levitate Birds. No One Cares.

All Over The World, Relationships Between Men And Women Are Very, Very Tricky And Very Difficult And You Don't Learn Anything. It's Not An Exact Science, So You Can't Learn Anything. You're Always Going By Instinct And Your Instinct Betrays You Because You Want What You Want When You Want It.

Time Is Nature's Way Of Keeping Everything From Happening At Once.

There Is No Advantage Getting Older. You Don't Get Smarter, You Don't Get Wiser, You Don't Get More Mellow, You Don't Get More Kindly, Nothing Good Happens. Your Back Hurts More, You Get More Indigestion, Your Eyesight Isn't As Good, You Need A Hearing Aid. It's A Bad Business Getting Old And I Would Advise You Not To Do It If You Can Avoid It. It Doesn't Have A Romantic Quality.

There's No Correlation Between What The Public Likes And What I'm After. I'm In A Different World.

I Can Do A Limited Amount Of Things And That's What I Do And I Feel Comfortable Doing It And I Have No Particular Desire To Do Anything Else As An Actor.

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.

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

I Work For A Company That Makes Deceptively Shallow Serving Dishes For Chinese Restaurants.

I Don't Want To Achieve Immortality Through My Work. I Want To Achieve It Through Not Dying.

There's No Rhyme Or Reason To Anything That I Do. It's Whatever Seems Right At The Time.

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

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

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.

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.

We Live In Far Too Permissive A Society. Never Before Has Pornography Been This Rampant. And Those Films Are So Badly Lit!

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.

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

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.

My Education Was Dismal. I Went To A Series Of Schools For Mentally Disturbed Teachers.

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

Isn't All Mankind Ultimately Executed For A Crime It Never Committed?

Capital Punishment

Life Is Tough And It's Tough Whether You're Famous Or Not Famous. And In The End It's Probably Better To Be Famous Because The Perks Are Better. You Get Better Seats At The Basketball Game, And You Get Better Tables And Reservations Places. If I Call A Doctor On Saturday Morning I Can Get Him. There's A Lot Of Things, Indulgences That You Don't Get, If You're Not Famous. Now I'm Not Saying It's Fair. But I Can't Say That I Don't Enjoy It.

Marriage Is Like Mushrooms: We Notice Too Late If They Are Good Or Bad.

I Have A Number Of Symptoms That Are Neurotic And Are Constricting In The Sense That If I Had A Brilliant Idea For A Film That Had To Be Shot In Tulsa, Ok I Would Tear It Up And Throw It Away. Anything Outside Of New York, 'cause I Can't Exist In A Hotel Outside Of My Own Home, I Have To Be In My Own Home And My Own Environment. This Is A Neurotic Symptom That Is Constricting To My Work Even.

One Of The Wonderful Things About Making A Film Of Any Genre Is That You Have Dialogue. You Can Take Up A Position. If You Want To Say Something About Your Position, You Can Just Say It. You Don't Have To Spend Massive Amounts Of Screen Time.

Some People Are Funny, And Some People Are Not Funny. Many People Who Are Not Funny Can Make A Living At It. You Don't Have To Be Great To Make A Living At It. Just Like A Doctor Who Doesn't Have To Be Great Can Still Make A Living Out Of It.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach!

I Didn't Know He Was Dead; I Thought He Was British.

Your Self-esteem Is A Notch Below Kafka.

Psychoanalyses Is Like Music Lessons, For 5 Years You Do Not Notice Any Progress And Suddenly You Can Play The Piano.

I Was In Analysis. I Was Suicidal. As A Matter Of Fact, I Would Have Killed Myself, But I Was In Analysis With A Strict Freudian And If You Kill Yourself They Make You Pay For The Sessions You Miss.

I Think Universal Harmony Is A Pipedream And It May Be More Productive To Focus On More Modest Goals, Like A Ban On Yodeling.

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.

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

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

What Is It About Death That Bothers Me? Probably The Hours.

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