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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.

-Woody Allen

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In Formulating Any Philosophy

Woody Allen

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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.

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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!

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

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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.

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.

Some Guy Hit My Fender, And I Told Him, 'be Fruitful And Multiply,' But Not In Those Words.

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

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

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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 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.

I Don't Wanna Live On In My Work. I Wanna Live On In My Apartment.

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

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Interestingly, According To Modern Astronomers, Space Is Finite. This Is A Very Comforting Thought-particularly For People Who Can Never Remember Where They Have Left Things.

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

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

Manute Bol Is So Skinny They Save Money On Road Trips. They Just Fax Him From City To City.

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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I Wish I Could Think Of A Positive Point To Leave You With. Will You Take Two Negative Points?

I See The Glass Half Full...but Of Poison.

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Does Art Imitate Life, Or Does Life Imitate Tv?

I'm Not Anti-social. I'm Just Not Social.

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If You Meet Somebody And Are Attracted To Someone, And The Exquisite Neurons In Your Brain And Her Brain Intermesh Properly, Then Things Can Be Wonderful. It's Not Like Homework. You Don't Have To Work At The Relationship.

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

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Chastity Is Curable, If Detected Early.

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

Students Achieving Oneness Will Move On To Twoness.

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There Are Drawbacks In Being Famous Too, But You Can Live With Those. They're Not Life-threatening. If The Paparazzi Are Outside Your Restaurant Or Your House - And Actors Make Such A Big Thing Of It And Scurry Into Cars And Drape Things - You Think They're Going To Be Crucified Or Something. It's Not A Big Deal. You Can Get Used To That. It's Not So Terrible.

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

In A Relationship, It Is Better To Be The Leaver Than The Leavee.

You Mellow Too Much You Ripen And Rot.

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

For Some Reason I've Always Had An Irrational Love For New York. There's No Reason That You Would Necessarily Like It On Paper. It's Very Expensive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

To You I'm An Atheist; To God, I'm The Loyal Opposition.

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

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

I'm Awash In Self-contempt!

It's Hard For Me To Know. I'll Think, 'i Really Brought Off My Ideas, It's Great,' And No One Sparks To It

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

When I'm Not Working, I Think And I Think When I Get Depressed.

Since I Was A Kid, I Could Make Up Stories, I Could Make Up Funny Jokes And I Could Always Do It. When I'm Walking Down The Street Or Having Dinner, Ideas Will Hit Me, And I Write Them Down On Matchbooks Or Napkins And Throw Them In The Draw.

For God Sakes, This Is A Woman I Was Married To For 10 Years. We Made Love. I'd Hold Her Head Over The Toilet Bowl When She Threw Up.

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...

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

That's The Way I Feel About The World: There Are Certain Problems That Can Only Be Dealt With That Way - Going Out And Doing Them. As Ugly A Truth As That Is, I Do Think It's The Truth About The World.

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

I've Often Felt That Life Is A Hard Deal And It's Unrelentingly Tragic And An Uphill Fight.

My Wife And I Thought We Were In Love, But It Turned Out To Be Benign

I Can't Express Anger. I Grow A Tumor Instead.

Expressing Anger

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.

Not Only Is There No God, But Try Finding A Plumber On Sunday.

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.

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.

You're Still In Love' 'no I'm Not, I'm Not She'll Always Be A Part Of Me, And She's An Important Person In My Life But For The Two Of Us Something Wasn't Working.' 'what Element?' 'we Never Found Out

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

All I Have In My Life Is My Imagination

Take The Money And Run.

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

The Curtain Rises On A Vast Primitive Wasteland, Not Unlike Certain Parts Of New Jersey.

Life Doesn't Imitate Art, It Imitates Bad Television.

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

Ninety Percent Of Life Is Just Showing Up.

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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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

My Films Are Therapy For My Debilitating Depression. In Institutions People Weave Baskets. I Make Films.

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.

What A World. It Could Be So Wonderful If It Wasn't For Certain People.

I Hope You're Getting This Down.

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

I Can't Minimize The Terror Factor. As You Get Older You Get More And More Frightened Because The Terrible Indignities Of Old Age Become Closer To You.

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.

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

Playing It Safe

A Tree Never Hits An Automobile Except In Self Defense.

I Think Crime Pays. The Hours Are Good, You Travel A Lot

Life Is Full Of Moments That Are Good - Winning A Lottery, Seeing A Beautiful Woman, A Great Dinner - But The Whole Thing Is Tragic. It's An Oasis That Is Very Pleasant.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

When You Are Dead, It Is Hard To Find The Light Switch.

Achilles Only Had An Achilles Heel, I Have An Entire Achilles Body.

I Don't Get Depressed; I Grow A Tumor Instead.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

Eternity Is Really Long, Especially Near The End.

The Difference Between Sex And Death Is, Death You Can Do Alone And Nobody Laughs At You.

I Heard That Commentary And Dissent Had Merged And Formed Dysenery.

Have You Ever Taken A Serious Political Stand On Anything? Yeah. Sure. For Twenty-four Hours Once I Refused To Eat Grapes.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach!

I Can Live In Paris For Four Months Or London Or, You Know, Barcelona. These Are Places That Are Like New York. But I Don't Think I Could Live In Many Places. When I Had To Make A Film In The United States I Picked San Francisco Because To Me It's One Of The Great Cities Of America.

You Can Be Distracted By Your Love Life, By The Baseball Game, Movies, By The Nonsense. "can I Get My Kid Into This Private School? Can I Get This Girl To Go Out With Me Saturday Night? Am I Going To Get The Promotion In My Office?" All This Stuff, But In The End The Universe Burns Out. So I Think It's Completely Meaningless.

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