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I've Never Been Satisfied Or Even Pleased With A Film That I've Done. I Make Them, I'm Finished, I've Never Looked At One After. I Don't Like Them Because There's A Big Gap Between What You Conceive In Your Mind When You're Writing And You Don't Have To Meet The Test Of Reality. You're Home, You Write And It's Funny And Beautiful And Romantic And Dramatic, And Then You Have To Show Up On A Cold Morning, And You Don't Have Enough Of This And This Goes Wrong And You Make The Wrong Choice On Something And You Screwed Up And You Can't Go Back.

-Woody Allen

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I've Never Been Satisfied

Woody Allen

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I've Never Been Satisfied Or Even Pleased With A Film That I've Done. I Make Them, I'm Finished, I've Never Looked At One After. I Don't Like Them Because There's A Big Gap Between What You Conceive In Your Mind When You're Writing And You Don't Have To Meet The Test Of Reality. You're Home, You Write And It's Funny And Beautiful And Romantic And Dramatic, And Then You Have To Show Up On A Cold Morning, And You Don't Have Enough Of This And This Goes Wrong And You Make The Wrong Choice On Something And You Screwed Up And You Can't Go Back.

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Playing It Safe

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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.

If I Was To See Any Of My Films Now I Would Feel, Oh God You Know It's Awful I Could Do That So Much Better Now. Look At All The Terrible Things I Did And All The Mistakes And All The Compromises And All The Blunders I Made, And It Would Be Such A Terrible Experience For Me To See Them. So It's Better That I Put It Out And Move On To The Next Thing And Make It History As Quickly As Possible.

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.

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

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

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

People Are Always Talking About The Dumbing Down Of The Country.

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

I've Always Been Lucky In Casting. The Trick In Casting Is To Hire Great People, And Let Them Do What They Do, Don't Interfere With Them Too Much. And Then When They're Great, Take Credit For It In The End.

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.

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.

I Was Walking Through The Woods, Thinking About Christ. If He Was A Carpenter, I Wondered What He Charged For Bookshelves.

I Always Felt That The Problems Of The World Would Never Ever Be Solved Until People Came To Terms With The Deeper Issues [spiritual] - That There Would Be An Aimless Reshuffling Of World Leaders And Governments And Programs.

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

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

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

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

When You Start Putting A Higher Value On Works Of Art Than People, You’re Forfeiting Your Humanity.

He Adored New York City. He Idolized It All Out Of Proportion... No, Make That: He - He Romanticized It All Out Of Proportion. Yes. To Him, No Matter What The Season Was, This Was Still A Town That Existed In Black And White And Pulsated To The Great Tunes Of George Gershwin.

Black And White

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

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The Meaning Of Life Is That Nobody Knows The Meaning Of Life.

Meaning Of Life

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

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

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

In Life, One Is Entitled To A Side Dish Of Either Coleslaw Or Potato Salad, And The Choice Must Be Made In Terror, With The Knowledge That Not Only Is Our Time On Earth Limited But Most Kitchens Close At Ten.

As A Boy, I Was Ashamed To Wear Glasses. I Memorized The Eye Chart, And Then On The Test They Asked Essay Questions.

To Me There’s No Real Difference Between A Fortune Teller Or A Fortune Cookie And Any Of The Organized Religions. They’re All Equally Valid Or Invalid, Really. And Equally Helpful.

Show Business Is Dog Eat Dog. It's Worse Than Dog Eat Dog. It's Dog Doesn't Return Dog's Phone Calls.

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.

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

There Are Three Things Jewish People Worship-god, Chinese Food And Wall-to-wall Carpeting.

People Always Tease Me. They Say, Look At You, You Went For So Much Psychoanalysis And You're So Neurotic, You Wind Up Marrying A Girl So Much Younger Than You.

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

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

People Always Ask Me, Do You Ever Think You'll Wake Up One Morning And Not Be Funny? That Thought Would Never Occur To Me--it's An Odd Thought And Not Realistic. Because Funny And Me Are Not Separate. We're One.

I Was Thrown Out Of College For Cheating On The Metaphysics Exam; I Looked Into The Soul Of The Boy Sitting Next To Me.

Basically I Am A Low-culture Person. I Prefer Watching Baseball With A Beer And Some Meatballs.

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

Dissatisfaction

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

I'd Like To Make A Great Movie. I've Made Many Movies. I Think I've Made Some Good Movies, But I Never Felt I've Made A Great Movie.

People Make Films For Different Reasons. For Money. Or, They Make Them Because Something In Them Demands Artistic Expression. I Do It Because I Enjoy The Work.

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.

That’s One Of The Nice Things About Writing, Or Any Art; If The Thing’s Real, It Just Lives.

He Was So Depressed, He Tried To Commit Suicide By Inhaling Next To An Armenian.

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!

In Certain Areas I Don't Function Well And In Other Areas I Function Very Well. I'm Very Good Professionally. I Have Good Discipline, I'm Able To Write Every Day And Do Films And Not Go Six Times Over The Budget. I Mean I'm A Coherent Person, But I Also Don't Like To Go Through Tunnels When I Travel. I'm Claustrophobic.

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Fictional Character

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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.

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

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Music Has Always Helped My Films. In 'the Curse Of The Jade Scorpion,' You Can Hear 'sunrise' By Glenn Miller, An Idol Of My Childhood, In The Surprise Ending. I Like Mixing Comedy With Suspense And Action.

The Man Who Said 'i'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good' Saw Deeply Into Life. People Are Afraid To Face How Great A Part Of Life Is Dependent On Luck. It's Scary To Think So Much Is Out Of One's Control. There Are Moments In A Match When The Ball Hits The Top Of The Net And For A Split Second It Can Either Go Forward Or Fall Back. With A Little Luck It Goes Forward And You Win. Or Maybe It Doesn't And You Lose.

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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.

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

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Even If God Exists, He's Done Such A Terrible Job, It's A Wonder People Don't Get Together And File A Class Action Suit Against Him.

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.

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

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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'.

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Your Self-esteem Is A Notch Below Kafka.

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

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

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Paranoia Is Knowing All The Facts.

The Artist's Job Is Not To Succumb To Despair But To Find An Antidote For The Emptiness Of Existence.

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

I Had An Iq Test. The Results Came Back Negative.

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I Always Thought It Would Be Very Funny If I Was A Blind Film Director.

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

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.

Someday The Lion Is Going To Lie Down With The Lamb, But The Lamb Isn't Going To Get Much Sleep.

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You Mellow Too Much You Ripen And Rot.

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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.

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I Do Occasionally Envy The Person Who Is Religious Naturally, Without Being Brainwashed Into It Or Suckered Into It By All The Organized Hustles.

Well, Trouble's My Middle Name. Actually, My Middle Name Is Marion, But I Don't Want You Spreading That Around.

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Standard Mathematics Has Recently Been Rendered Obsolete By The Discovery That For Years We Have Been Writing The Numeral Five Backward. This Has Led To Reevaluation Of Counting As A Method Of Getting From One To Ten. Students Are Taught Advanced Concepts Of Boolean Algebra, And Formerly Unsolvable Equations Are Dealt With By Threats Of Reprisals.

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.

The Only Thing That Does Change, To Some Degree, Is [that] You Have Some Life Experiences, You Suffer A Certain Amount And You Incorporate That Into Your Work. Not In The Content Of Your Work, But In The Sensibility Of Your Work. It's Nothing That You Try And Do; It Just Happens. And If You're Lucky, People Buy Tickets To See It, And If You're Not Lucky, [then] They Don't Like It. But That's All.

I'm A Teleological, Existential Agnostic.

I Can't Even Make A Leap Of Faith To Believe In My Own Existence.

The Whole Thrust Of Science And The Medical Profession Is To Try And Prevent It From Happening, To Try To Prolong Life, To Keep You From Dying, To Keep You From Getting Older, To Rejuvenate You. I Mean, That's Everybody's Wish. The Fountain Of Youth Is Everybody's Sought-after Thing.

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The Dictatorship Is Shut Up, Democracy Is Always Concerned.

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

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

Of All Human Weakness Obsession Is The Most Dangerous. And The Silliest.

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

Those Who Can't Do, Teach!

How Can I Believe In God When Just Last Week I Got My Tongue Caught In The Roller Of An Electric Typewriter?

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

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.

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.

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I've Had Bad Luck In My Two Previous Marriages. The First Wife Left Me, And The Second Did Not.

There Will Be No Major Solution To The Suffering Of Humanity Until We Reach Some Understanding Of Who We Are, What The Purpose Of Creation Was, What Happens After Death. Until Those Questions Are Resolved We Are Caught.

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

The Last Woman I Was In Was The Statue Of Liberty.

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.

I've Never Felt Truth Was Beauty. Never. I've Always Felt That People Can't Take Too Much Reality. I Like Being In Ingmar Bergman's World. Or In Louis Armstrong's World. Or In The World Of The New York Knicks. Because It's Not This World. You Spend Your Whole Life Searching For A Way Out. You Just Get An Overdose Of Reality, You Know, And It's A Terrible Thing. I'm Always Fighting Against Reality.

During The Course Of The Year A Number Of Ideas Just Come Up Automatically. I Could Be Walking Down The Street. Or Shaving. An Idea Will Hit Me And I'll Write It Down. Then, When I'm Ready To Write, I Check My Little Matchbooks And Napkins And Find That It Is Good Or It's Pretty Terrible. There Are Other Times When I Don't Have Any Ideas And I'll Go Into A Room And Close The Door And I Sit And Sweat It Out For A Day Or A Month And Eventually I Come Up With [something].

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

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.

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[stanley] Kubrick Was A Great Artist And A Perfectionist. He Always Wanted The Exact Right Thing. He Did A Million Takes. Everything Had To Be Perfect. I'm An Imperfectionist. I Don't Really Care That Much About The Work. I Write Quickly. I'm Careless. I Shoot Carelessly.

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.

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

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.

I Am Two With Nature.

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.

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

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

Subjectivity Is Objective.

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 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.

I Ran Into Isosceles. He Had A Great Idea For A New Triangle!

I Think Bergman's Films Have Eternal Relevance, Because They Deal With The Difficulty Of Personal Relationships And Lack Of Communication Between People And Religious Aspirations And Mortality, Existential Themes That Will Be Relevant A Thousand Years From Now. When Many Of The Things That Are Successful And Trendy Today Will Have Been Long Relegated To Musty-looking Antiques, His Stuff Will Still Be Great.

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

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.

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The Only Love That Lasts Is Unrequited Love.

Some People Think About Sex All The Time; Some People Think Of Sex Some Of The Time; And Some People Never Think About Sex: They Become Lawyers.

I Write About What I Want To Write About, And So The Film Comes Out As A Very Personal Expression Even If Its Subject Matter Is Totally Prefabricated.

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

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.

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

Take The Money And Run.

I Like Filming In New York A Lot Myself, But London Is Accommodating To Me; The Weather's Very Good There And The Conditions For Shooting And The Financial Conditions, The Artistic Conditions Are Good, So It's A Pleasant Place To Shoot.

My Father Worked For The Same Firm For 12 Years. They Fired Him And Replaced Him With A Tiny Gadget That Does Everything My Father Does, Only Much Better. The Depressing Thing Is My Mother Ran Out And Bought One

The Best An Idea Gets Is When Its In Your Head.

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

All People Know The Same Truth. Our Lives Consist Of How We Choose To Distort It.

Funny Inspirational

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.

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

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.

It's A Wonderful Thing To Be Able To Create Your Own World Whenever You Want To.

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

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Bruce Dickinson

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