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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.

-Woody Allen

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Let's Say There Was

Woody Allen

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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.

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

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.

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

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

I Think It's My Job Or The Artist's Job, To Try And Find Some Solution Or Some Reason To Accept Things. But Given The Grimmest Reality, I Feel The Grimmest Facts Are The Real Facts, The True Facts: That You're Born, You Die, You Suffer, It's To No Purpose, And You're Gone Forever, Ever, Ever, And That's It.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

She Had Been Critical Of His New Torch Song, "a Side Order Of Heartache, Please," Suggesting It Could Be Used As A Good Way To Break In Their New Paper Shredder.

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.

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.

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

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

God Is Either Cruel Or Incompetent.

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

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

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

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.

Why Ruin A Good Story With The Truth?

Your Audience Teaches You How To Be Funny.

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

Capital Punishment

I Never Ever See A Film Of Mine After I Release It To The Public. I See It When I Shoot It In My Dailies And While I'm Editing It, Re-editing It And Reshooting It And All That. By The Time It's Finished I Never Want To See It Again.

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

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

For The First Year Of Marriage I Had Basically A Bad Attitude. I Tended To Place My Wife Underneath A Pedestal.

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.

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

I Don't Rely On Anybody Except My Own Judgment. I Don't Get Much Input. I Don't Know If That's Helped Me Or If I Would Be Better Off If I Did Rely On Someone.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Life Is Full Of Misery, Loneliness, And Suffering - And It's All Over Much Too Soon.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Is Sex Dirty? Only When It's Being Done Right.

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

See, I Never Gain An Ounce, Because, You Know, My Anxiety Acts Like Aerobics.

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

It Is No Secret That Organized Crime In America Takes In Over Forty Billion Dollars A Year. This Is Quite A Profitable Sum, Especially When One Considers That The Mafia Spends Very Little For Office Supplies.

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

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.

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

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Jewish Tradition

I'd Always Wanted To Be A Dramatic. Comedy Comes More Naturally To Me. I Can Do It With More Facility. So I Feel More Comfortable With It.

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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.

[...] 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.

I Would Never Wanna Belong To Any Club That Would Have Someone Like Me For A Member.

The Artist Can't Give You An Answer That's Satisfying To The Dreadful Reality Of Your Existence. So The Best You Can Do Is Maybe Entertain People And Refresh Them For An Hour-and-a-half.

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It Is Impossible To Experience One's Death Objectively And Still Carry A Tune.

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

... Years Of Insanity Have Made This Guy Crazy!

Life Is Divided Into The Horrible And The Miserable.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Sentence Structure Is Innate, But Whining Is Acquired.

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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.

If I Had My Life To Live Over, I Wish I Could Be A Great Pianist Or Something.

Early In Life, I Was Visited By The Bluebird Of Anxiety

Some People Want To Achieve Immortality Through Their Works Or Their Descendants. I Prefer To Achieve Immortality By Not Dying.

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

The Universe Is Merely A Fleeting Idea In God's Mind -- A Pretty Uncomfortable Thought, Particularly If You've Just Made A Down Payment On A House.

See, I Will Always Have This Penchant For What I Call Kamikaze Women. I Call Them Kamikazes Because They, You Know They Crash Their Plane, They're Self-destructive. But They Crash Into You, And You Die Along With Them.

Life's Hard, Then You Die.

Meaningful Death

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.

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

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.

When We Played Softball, I'd Steal Second Base, Feel Guilty And Go Back.

Relationships Are Really What Interest Me The Most. And I Think, In The End, They Interest Most People The Most. Even When You Read Tolstoy Or Something, Basically They're About Man And Woman Relationships.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Then Job Fell To His Knees And Cried To The Lord, "thine Is The Kingdom And The Power And Glory. Thou Hast A Good Job. Don't Blow It."

Everybody Knows How Awful The World Is And What A Terrible Situation It Is And Each Person Distorts It In A Certain Way That Enables Him To Get Through. Some People Distort It With Religious Things. Some People Distort It With Sports, With Money, With Love, With Art, And They All Have Their Own Nonsense About What Makes It Meaningful, And All But Nothing Makes It Meaningful. These Things Definitely Serve A Certain Function, But In The End They All Fail To Give Life Meaning And Everyone Goes To His Grave In A Meaningless Way.

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

Many People Who Get A Lot Of Money Are Willing To Work With Me For No Money. This Is True.

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

I Sold My Memoirs Of My Love Life To Parker Brothers And They Are Going To Make A Game Out Of It.

As The Author You Know How You Want It To Appear On Screen And It's Always The Content Dictating The Form.

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

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

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

I Was Thrown Out Of Nyu For Cheating-with The Deans Wife

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

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.

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.

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.

New York Is My Home And I Have A Particular Fondness For It. I Think It's A Place Where You Can Generate Any Kind Of Story Wonderfully. But I Also Would Be Very Happy To Make A Film In Paris Or Rome.

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

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.

If God Exists, I Hope He Has A Good Excuse.

Men Learn To Love The Woman They Are Attracted To. Women Learn To Become Attracted To The Man They Fall In Love With.

Falling In Love

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.

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.

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

The Study Of Economy Usually Shows Us That The Best Time For Purchase Was Last Year.

If I Could Change The Structure Of Existence I Would Do It. I Could See A Better Way To Live For Everybody.

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.

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

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.

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

I Can't With Any Conscience Argue For New York With Anyone. It's Like Calcutta. But I Love The City In An Emotional, Irrational Way, Like Loving Your Mother Or Your Father Even Though They're A Drunk Or A Thief. I've Loved The City My Whole Life - To Me, It's Like A Great Woman.

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.

And Nietzche, With His Theory Of Eternal Recurrence. He Said That The Life We Lived We're Going To Live Over Again The Exact Same Way For Eternity. Great. That Means I'll Have To Sit Through The Ice Capades Again.

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.

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

The Key Point About A Demonstration Is That It Must Be Seen. Hence The Term "demonstration." If A Person Demonstrates Privately In His Own Home, This Is Not Technically A Demonstration But Merely "acting Silly" Or "behaving Like An Ass.

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.

If It Turns Out That There Is A God...the Worst That You Can Say About Him Is That Basically He's An Underachiever.

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

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...

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

I Wouldn't Mind Dying So Much If It Wasn't That I Would Be Dead At The End Of It.

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

Over The Years I've Never Written Or Made Movies About Political Themes 'cause While They Do Have Current Critical Importance, In The Large, Large Scheme Of Things, Only The Big Questions Matter And The Answers To Those Big Questions Are Very, Very Depressing.

I'm Really Impotent Against The Overwhelming Bleakness Of The Universe And The Only Thing I Can Do Is My Little Gift [filmmaking] And Do It The Best I Can, [...] Which Is Cold Comfort.

Problems Are Like Toilet Paper. You Pull On One And Ten More Come.

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

I'm Trying To Arrange My Life So I Don't Have To Be Present.

Throughout History In The Theater And Film People Do Like Sarcastic Characters, And They Do Like Curmudgeons - If They're Amusing, They Do Like Them Despite The Fact That They're Vitriolic, Particularly If They're For The Right Thing. If You Can See That The Person Is A Decent Person And Is For The Right Thing, And Is Not Just A Nasty Person With Base Motives, But Someone Who Is A Decent Human But Expresses Himself.

The Heart Wants What It Wants. There's No Logic To These Things. You Meet Someone And You Fall In Love And That's That.

I Am An Only Child. I Have One Sister.

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

I'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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

I Can't Enjoy Anything Unless Everybody Is. If One Guy Is Starving Someplace, That Puts A Crimp In My Evening.

Hey Listen -- I've Proved A Lot Of Things. That's How I Pay My Rent. Theories And Little Observations. A Puckish Remark Now And Then. Occasional Maxims. It Beats Picking Olives, But Let's Not Get Carried Away.

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.

The Best Things In Life Are Censored.

Best Things In Life

I Never Knew What Amazon Was. I've Never Seen Any Of Those Series, Even On Cable. I've Never Seen The Sopranos, Or Mad Men. I'm Out Every Night And When I Come Home, I Watch The End Of The Baseball Or Basketball Game, And There's Charlie Rose And I Go To Sleep.

We Laughed Over It, And Hemingway Punched Me In The Mouth.

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.

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

As The Poet Said, 'only God Can Make A Tree,' Probably Because It's So Hard To Figure Out How To Get The Bark On.

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

Those Modern Analysts, They Charge So Much! In My Day, For Five Marks Freud Himself Would Treat You. For Ten Marks He Would Treat You And Press Your Pants. For Fifteen Marks Freud Would Let You Treat Him - That Included A Choice Of Any Two Vegetables.

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.

Have You Ever Noticed That Good People Sleep Better, But Bad People Seem To Have More Fun When They're Awake?

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

I'm A Teleological, Existential Agnostic.

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.

How Wrong Emily Dickinson Was! Hope Is Not "the Thing With Feathers." The Thing With Feathers Has Turned Out To Be My Nephew. I Must Take Him To A Specialist In Zurich.

If You Want To Make God Laugh, Tell Him About Your Plans.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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