Background Image

...

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.

-Woody Allen

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

In The Shower, With

Woody Allen

...

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.

Views: 31137

Topic

More From Woody Allen

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

Gauguin Flew Into A Frenzy! He Held My Head Under The X-ray Machine For Ten Straight Minutes And For Several Hours After I Could Not Blink My Eyes In Unison." — "if The Impressionists Had Been Dentists

This Guy Goes To A Psychiatrist And Says, Doc, My Brother’s Crazy. He Thinks He’s A Chicken. The Doctor Says, Well, Why Don’t You Turn Him In? And The Guy Says, I Would But I Need The Eggs. Well I Guess That’s Pretty Much How I Feel About Relationships. You Know They’re Totally Irrational And Crazy And Absurd But I Guess We Keep Going Through It Because, Uh, Most Of Us Need The Eggs.

I Tended To Place My Wife Under A Pedestal.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Took A Speed-reading Course And Read War And Peace In Twenty Minutes. It Involves Russia.

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.

End Production Today. Wrap Party As Usual A Little Sad. Slow Danced With Scarlett. Broke Her Toe. Not My Fault. When She Dipped Me Back, I Stepped On It. Penélope [cruz] And Javier [bardem] Anxious To Work With Me Again. Said If I Ever Come Up With Another Screenplay To Try And Find Them. Goodbye Drink With Rebecca [hall]. Sentimental Moment. Everyone In Cast And Crew Chipped In And Bought Me A Ballpoint Pen.

It Is Clear The Future Holds Great Opportunities. It Also Holds Pitfalls. The Trick Will Be To Avoid The Pitfalls, Seize The Opportunities, And Get Back Home By Six O'clock.

I Can Make Films. And Some Of Them Come Out Good, And Some Of Them Come Out Better, And Some Of Them Come Out Worse. But I've Been Very Lucky Over The Years To Be Able To Sustain The Length Of Career That I've Had.

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

Television Watching

I'm Twelve Years Old. I Run Into A Synagogue. I Ask The Rabbi The Meaning Of Life. He Tells Me The Meaning Of Life But He Tells It To Me In Hebrew. I Don't Understand Hebrew. Then He Wants To Charge Me $600 For Hebrew Lessons.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Best Things In Life Are Censored.

Best Things In Life

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.

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

I'd Never Join A Club That Would Allow A Person Like Me To Become A Member.

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.

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.

And My Parents Finally Realize I'm Kidnapped And They Snap Into Action Immediately: They Rent Out My Room.

You Know, It's One Thing About Intellectuals, They Prove That You Can Be Absolutely Brilliant And Have No Idea What's Going On.

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

There Is No God

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

The Food Here Is Terrible, And The Portions Are Too Small.

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

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

This Stuff Tastes Awful; I Could Have Made A Fortune Selling It In My Health-food Store.

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.

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.

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

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

I 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.

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

I See No Advantages In Aging Whatsoever. You Become Shriveled. You Become Decrepit. You Lose Your Faculties. Your Peer Group Passes Away. You Sit In A Room Gumming Your Porridge. I Don't See Any Advantage In This Whatsoever.

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

I'm At The Stage Of Life When If A Girl Says No To Me I'm Profoundly Grateful To Her.

There Is Always The Possibility That People Will Change. Real Change Is More Rare. You Are Who You Are At A Certain Age In Life You Are Pretty Much A Variation Of That Your Whole Life. It's Conceivable That You Will Change But It's Not Likely.

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

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

I'm Awash In Self-contempt!

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.

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

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

We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices.

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

The Wicked At Heart Probably Know Something.

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.

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.

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

Usually, You Hire People That You Think Are Wonderful.

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

Fictional Character

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

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

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

To Me Nature Is... Spiders And Bugs, And Big Fish Eating Little Fish, And Plants Eating Plans, And Animals Eating... It's Like An Enormous Restaurant, That's The Way I See It.

I Should Have Known Something Was Wrong With My First Wife. When I Brought Her Home To Meet My Parents, They Approved Of Her.

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

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

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

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.

I'd Call Him A Sadistic, Hippophilic Necrophile, But That Would Be Beating A Dead Horse.

I'm A Creature Of The New York City Streets.

I Always Feel The Cynicism Is Reality With Maybe An Alternate Spelling Or Something Because I Feel That I Have Real Perspective On This Particular Issue Of Punishment In Society.

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

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

Tradition Is The Illusion Of Permanance.

What Do I Dislike About Death? Must Be The Hours.

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

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

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

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.

History Is The Same Thing Over And Over Again.

Fitness Motivational

Temporary Insanity

Abysmal Vermin That I Am, I Couldn't Of Course Tell Her That It Was Her Incredible Mother That I Wanted To See Again… I Knew Only As I Drove Through The Cold, Night Autumn Air That Somewhere Freud, Sophocles And Eugene O’neill Were Laughing.

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

I Think Frank Capra Was A Much Craftier Filmmaker, A Wonderful Filmmaker. He Had Enormous Technique, And He Knew How To Manipulate The Public Quite Brilliantly.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Only Love That Lasts Is Unrequited Love.

Life Is Divided Into The Horrible And The Miserable.

In Perpetrating A Revolution, There Are Two Requirements: Someone Or Something To Revolt Against And Someone To Actually Show Up And Do The Revolting. Dress Is Usually Casual And Both Parties May Be Flexible About Time And Place, But If Either Faction Fails To Attend, The Whole Enterprise Is Likely To Come Off Badly.

Standing In A Garage No More Makes You A Car Than Standing In A Church Makes You A Christian.

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

Expressing Anger

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

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.

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

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.

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

Meaning Of Life

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.

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

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

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.

The Audience Goes To Sleep Really Quickly! If You Have A Slight Pause At The Wrong Time, That's It!

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

Mysterious Universe

My Brain? It's My Second Favorite Organ!

Love May Be The Answer, But Even Though You're Watching For The Solution, Intercourse Raises Some Rather Interesting Thoughts.

Skeptic That I Was As An Adolescent, I Had Recently Come To Believe In A Supreme Being After Thumbing Through A Victoria's Secret Catalogue.

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].

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

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

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

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

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

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.

No One Ever Wants The Whole Script. I Give The Whole Script To People Who Require The Whole Script But To Those People Who Don't Require The Whole Script I Don't Give It To Them And No One Cares. They're Relieved Not To Have To Read Extra Pages That They're Not In.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I Wonder If Socrates And Plato Took A House On Crete During The Summer.

Showing Up Is 80 Percent Of Life.

If You Take A Frown And Turn It Upside Down, The Person You Are Holding By The Ankles Will Soon Pass Out.

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.

None Of The Arts Are Any Good Unless You Really Are Great At Them.

Don't You See The Rest Of The Country Looks Upon New York Like We're Left-wing, Communist, Jewish, Homosexual Pornographers? I Think Of Us That Way Sometimes And I Live Here.

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

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

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.

Oh, He Was Probably A Member Of The National Rifle Association. It Was A Group That Helped Criminals Get Guns So They Could Shoot Citizens. It Was A Public Service.

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 Always Thought That As Long As Man Is Mortal, He Will Never Be Relaxed.

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

I'm Not Saying I Didn't Enjoy Myself, But I Didn't.

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

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

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.

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

Whosoever Loveth Wisdom Is Righteous, But He That Keepeth Company With Fowl Is Weird.

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.

Fantasy Is Only A State Of Mind That You Can Employ When Existing In A Real Context.

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

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

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

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

Sometimes Some Of The Best Moments Are Contributed By The Actors Being Creative, With Their Own Improvisations.

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.

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

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.

Having Sex Is Like Playing Bridge. If You Don't Have A Good Partner, You'd Better Have A Good Hand.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

If My Soul Exists Without My Body I Am Convinced All My Clothes Will Be Loose-fitting

In 1940 I Was Just Turning 5 Years Old And Being Taken To The Movies. For Those Of Us Who Were Not Old Enough To Understand The Horror Of War It Was A Very Romantic Era Because These Guys Were Kissing Their Wives And Girlfriends Goodbye And Going Off To Fight And Become Heroes.

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

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

I 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.

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.

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

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

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

I Was Nauseous And Tingly All Over. I Was Either In Love Or I Had Smallpox.

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.

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

A Stockbroker Is Someone Who Invests Other People's Money Until It Is All Gone.

I've Become The Person I've Always Hated, But I'm Happier.

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

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.

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

You Use Sex To Express Every Emotion Except Love.

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.

People Say That Death Is A Part Of Life And There Must Be Something To It, But I Just See It As Bad News And I Want Everybody To Stop Sugarcoating It.

Is Sex Dirty? Only If It's Done Right.

I Wish My Parents Had Raised Me In Manhattan Because I Think It's The Greatest Thing You Can Do For A Kid Is To Raise Them In New York City. I Can See This With My Own Children.

Cynicism Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling.

I Always Feel, I Guess Being A Product Of The Movies Of The 40s Where Movies Were The Greatest Things And Screens Were Big And Palaces Were Palaces And Stars Were Larger Than Life That Reality Was So Much Inferior To What We Felt Was Conceivably Possible From What We Had Seen In The Movies.

Larger Than Life

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

I'm A Terrible Musician. While The Band Members Are Great, I'm Tolerated And Affectionately Regarded Because I Do Movies, But If I Had To Make My Living As A Musician I Would Starve. I'm Like A Sunday Tennis Player.

Enthusiasm Is A Good Engine, But It Needs Intelligence For A Driver.

Life Is A Concentration Camp. You're Stuck Here And There's No Way Out And You Can Only Rage Impotently Against Your Persecutors.

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

Capacity To Love

When I Was Young, I Wanted To Be A Dramatic Writer, A Writer Of Tragedy. Nothing Would've Pleased Me More Than If I Could Have Written Like Eugene O'neil Or Tennessee Williams.

It Seemed The World Was Divided Into Good And Bad People. The Good Ones Slept Better While The Bad Ones Seemed To Enjoy The Waking Hours Much More.

There Is No Justice, There Is No Rational Structure To It [life]. That Is Just The Way It Is, And Each Person Figures Out Some Way To Cope.

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

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

I Consider Myself A Completely Lucky Filmmaker. I've Had Nothing But Good Luck. Everything I've Needed Has Come My Way.

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

Years Ago I Was On Television Having A Discussion With Billy Graham About Atheism. He Was Saying, Even If You're Right And I'm Wrong, And There's Nothing After, I Will Have Had A Better Life Than You, Because I Do Believe There Was Something. And I Couldn't Argue With That, Even Though I Wanted To.

Trending Author

Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

Shelagh Delaney

Category