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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.

-Woody Allen

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Life Is Tough And

Woody Allen

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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.

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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.

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.

If I Could Just Hope To Have A Major Talent, Then I Would Rather Have It In Music Than In Any Other Field.

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Humorists Always Sit At The Children's Table.

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.

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

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I've Been Lucky Because My Films Have Consistently Made A Profit, Almost All Of Them Have Made A Profit. Never A Huge Profit, But Nobody Gets Hurt. And Therefore I Get A Lot Of Freedom.

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

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

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.

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Life Is Hard For Insects. And Don't Think Mice Are Having Any Fun Either.

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.

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

What Is So Fascinating About Sitting Around Watching A Bunch Of Pituitary Cases Stuff A Ball Through A Hoop?

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

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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.

My Experience Creatively Is Different Than My Experience In Life, For, As My Father Would Say, The Simple Reason That You Can't Get Hurt When Everything Goes Wrong Creatively.

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Regarding Love What Can You Say? It's Not The Quantity Of Your Sexual Relations That Counts. It's The Quality. On The Other Hand If The Quantity Drops Below Once Every Eight Months, I Would Definitely Look Into It.

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

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

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

Tradition Is The Illusion Of Permanance.

I'm Very Old-fashioned. I Believe That People Should Stay Married For Life, Like Pigeons And Catholics.

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There's A Tacit Agreement Between Myself And The Audience That I Will Entertain Them When They Buy Their Ticket, And I've Been The One That Has Screwed That Up. Once In While I Indulge Myself And Try Something Else, And I Keep My Fingers Crossed That It Will Come Out Good And There'll Be Enough People Who Will Enjoy It, But That Doesn't Often Happen.

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Sentence Structure Is Innate, But Whining Is Acquired.

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If I Had My Choice In Life I Would Have Had The Gifts Of Tennessee Williams Or Eugene O'neill. Unfortunately My Gifts Lie In Comedy And So Comedy Comes Fairly Easy To Me And I Occasionally Have An Idea For A Very Serious Piece And I Do It, But The Ideas Don't Come That Readily To Me.

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I'm In Show Business. I'm Not Like A Poor Factory Worker Who'd Been Laid Off.

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

This Sounds So Bleak When I Say It, But We Need Some Delusions To Keep Us Going. And The People Who Successfully Delude Themselves Seem Happier Than The People Who Can't.

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.

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

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

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You'll Live To Be A Hundred If You Give Up All The Things That Make You Want To.

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I've Had A Very Productive Life. I've Worked Very Hard, I've Never Fallen Prey To Depression. I'm Not Sure I Could Have Done All Of That Without Being In Psychoanalysis.

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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.

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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 God Is Everywhere, I Had Concluded, Then He Is In Food. Therefore, The More I Ate The Godlier I Would Become. Impelled By This New Religious Fervor, I Glutted Myself Like A Fanatic.

You Always Think Another Time Would Have Been Ideal For You . . . The Reality Is There Was No Novocaine When You Went To The Dentist.

I Have A Limitless Amount Of Great Music At My Disposal And It's Very, Very Pleasurable Because When The Music Goes On The Film It's Amazing How Much It Livens Up The Film And Gives It An Emotional Kick In The Pants, Sort Of.

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

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

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

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

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

Comedy Just Pokes At Problems, Rarely Confronts Them Squarely. Drama Is Like A Plate Of Meat And Potatoes, Comedy Is Rather The Dessert, A Bit Like Meringue.

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

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

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

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Capacity To Love

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.

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.

Paris Is A Very Exciting City. I Learned About Paris The Same Way That Americans Do: From The Movies.

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With Films, I Just Scribble A Couple Of Notes For A Scene. You Don't Have To Do Any Writing At All, You Just Have Your Notes For The Scene, Which Are Written With The Actors And The Camera In Mind. The Actual Script Is A Necessity For Casting And Budgeting, But The End Product Often Doesn't Bear Much Resemblance To The Script--at Least In My Case.

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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.

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

I Don't Know What I'm Doing, But My Incompetence Has Never Stopped My Enthusiasm.

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.

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.

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Best Things In Life

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

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

Take The Money And Run.

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

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.

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.

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

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Students Achieving Oneness Will Move On To Twoness.

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

Life Is Short. Short, And Not About Anything Except What You Can Touch And What Touches You.

The Great Question Of Philosophy Remains: If Life Is Meaningless, What Can Be Done About Alphabet Soup?

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

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

Every Time You Make A Movie It's A New And Different Experience. You Learn Very Little From The Past. So, I'm A Little Bit Better Than I Was When I First Started.

Different Experiences

I Idolized Superman When I Was Younger. I Thought He And I Had A Lot In Common. He Was Always Going Into Phonebooths And Taking Off All His Clothes.

I Believe People Ought To Mate For Life...like Pigeons Or Catholics.

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

Those Who Can't Do, Teach!

In New York State They Have A Strange Law That Says You Can't Get A Divorce Unless You Can Prove Adultery - And It's Weird, Because The Ten Commandments Say 'thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.' But New York State Says You Have To. Well, Finally, What Happened Was That My Wife Committed Adultery For Me. She's Always Been More Mechanically Inclined Than I Have.

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

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

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

When I Am In New York, I Want To Be In Europe, And When I Am In Europe, I Want To Be In New York.

I’m Going To Kill Myself. I Should Go To Paris And Jump Off The Eiffel Tower. I’ll Be Dead. You Know, In Fact, If I Get The Concorde, I Could Be Dead Three Hours Earlier, Which Would Be Perfect. Or Wait A Minute. It -- With The Time Change, I Could Be Alive For Six Hours In New York But Dead Three Hours In Paris. I Could Get Things Done, And I Could Also Be Dead.

People Ask Me Whether I Think That One Day I Might Wake Up One Morning And Run Dry, But I've Had The Opposite Feeling - That I Would Die Before I Had Time To Write All The Ideas In My Drawer.

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

You Use Sex To Express Every Emotion Except Love.

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

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.

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

The Only Love That Lasts Is Unrequited Love.

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

I Was Raised In A Religious Home. It Was Unreasonable Enforced Religion That Turned Me Off It. It Was A Joyless, Unpleasant, Stupid, Barbaric Thing When I Was A Child And I've Never Gotten Over That Feeling. If You're Talking About Religion It's One Thing; I Don't Hold Jewish Religion With Any More Seriousness Than I Would Any Other.

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

He's A Genius, She's A Genius, Wow, You Know Alot Of Geniuses, You Should Meet Some Stupid People Sometime, You Might Learn Something

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

Once The Movie's Over, There's Not Much Point. When The Thing Is Edited, Mixed, And Color-corrected, And You've Finished It... In My Case, I Never Read Anything About It, I Never Think About 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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