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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.

-Woody Allen

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More Than At Any

Woody Allen

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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.

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I Think, On Both Sides Of The Camera Or The Novel: Distraction. I'm Obsessed With: Can I Get This Actress Or My Third Act To Work? I'm Distracted. I'm Interested In That So I Don't Sit Home And Think, "gee, Life Is Meaningless. We're All Going To Die. The Universe Is Pulling Apart At Breakneck Speed."

I Foresee Death By Culture Shock.

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

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

Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going? Is There Possibility Of A Group Discount?

When I Get Up In The Morning, I Go And I Work With Beautiful Women And Charming Men And Funny Comedians And Dramatic Artists. And I'm Presented With Costumes And Great Music To Choose From And Sets. I Travel A Certain Amount Of Places, So I've Been Living In A Bubble. And I Like It.

I Think [aging] Has Nothing To Recommend It. You Don't Gain Any Wisdom As The Years Go By. You Fall Apart, Is What Happens. People Try And Put A Nice Varnish On It, And Say, Well, You Mellow. You Come To Understand Life And Accept Things. But You'd Trade All Of That For Being 35 Again.

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.

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.

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.

Your Audience Teaches You How To Be Funny.

I Don't Believe In Competition For Artistic Things. I Just Like The Atmosphere Of The Cannes Festival. I Don't Want To Win Anything Or Lose Anything.

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.

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.

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

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

When I Naturally Write A Story And I Feel That The Guy Is Sitting Across The Table From The Girl And Flirting With Her... I Think, 'god, That Can't Be Me' Because I'm Just Too Old For That Part. You Need A 30-year-old Or A 35-year-old For That Part. And So I've Given Myself Less And Less Roles.

You Know What My Philosophy Of Life Is? That It’s Important To Have Some Laughs, But You Got To Suffer A Little Too, Because Otherwise You Miss The Whole Point To Life.

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, 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I've Always Had An Easy Time Directing Actors Because I Always Hire Ones That Are Great Before I Get My Hands On Them.

The Best Things In Life Are Censored.

Best Things In Life

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

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

Sex Alleviates Tension. Love Causes It.

Photons Have Mass? I Didn’t Even Know They Were Catholic.

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.

I Never Start Editing A Film Until It's Completely Shot; I Don't Edit Along The Way, Ever. When It's Finished I Come In Here [screening Room] And We Start With Reel One, Scene One And Start Editing Shot By Shot By Shot Until We're Finished.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Don't Know What I Want, But I Know What I Don't Want

You Can't Ride Two Horses With One Behind.

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

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

Pale, Nervous Girls With Black-rimmed Glasses And Blunt-cut Hair Lolled Around On Sofas, Riffling Penguin Classics Provocatively. [...] But It Wasn’t Just Intellectual Experiences—they Were Peddling Emotional Ones, Too. For Fifty Bucks, I Learned, You Could “relate Without Getting Close.” For A Hundred, A Girl Would Lend You Her Bartok Records, Have Dinner, And Then Let You Watch While She Had An Anxiety Attack.

There Are Worse Things Than Death. Many Of Them Playing At A Theater Near You.

Let's Say There Was A Burning Building And You Could Rush In And You Could Save Only One Thing: Either The Last Known Copy Of Shakespeare's Plays Or Some Anonymous Human Being. What Would You Do?

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

In Every Generation There Are A Few People Who Are Authentically Funny. The Cosmetics Change. You May Not Be Able To Articulate It, And You May Laugh At Them And Get A Certain Amount Of Enjoyment. But When You're Asleep At Night, And You Wake Up At 3 In The Morning, And You're Alone In Your Bed, You Know Who's Really Funny.

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.

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

There Is No Advantage Getting Older. You Don't Get Smarter, You Don't Get Wiser, You Don't Get More Mellow, You Don't Get More Kindly, Nothing Good Happens. Your Back Hurts More, You Get More Indigestion, Your Eyesight Isn't As Good, You Need A Hearing Aid. It's A Bad Business Getting Old And I Would Advise You Not To Do It If You Can Avoid It. It Doesn't Have A Romantic Quality.

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

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?

The French Make Two Mistakes About Me. They Think I'm An Intellectual Because I Wear These Glasses And They Think I'm An Artist Because My Films Lose Money.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Believing Would Be Easier If God Would Show Himself By Depositing A Million Dollars In A Swiss Bank Account In My Name

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.

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.

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

I Recently Turned 60. Practically A Third Of My Life Is Over.

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

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.

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.

The Heart Wants What It Wants.

Inspirational Love

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

Sex And Death. Two Things That Come But Once In My Lifetime, But At Least After Death You're Not Nauseous.

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

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

In California, They Don't Throw Their Garbage Away - They Make It Into Tv Shows.

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

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

One Of The Interesting Things Is, The Most Gifted People, The Biggest People, Have No Problem Taking Small Roles.

There's Something About My Films; They're Informed By My Sensibility. I Have The Same Preoccupations, The Same Interests... There's Just Something In The Nuance, And So You Always Know It's A Film Of Mine Whether I Sign My Name To It Or Not.

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.

That’s One Of The Nice Things About Writing, Or Any Art; If The Thing’s Real, It Just Lives. All The Attendant Hoopla About It, The Success Over It Or The Critical Rejection—none Of That Really Matters. In The End, The Thing Will Survive Or Not On Its Own Merits. Not That Immortality Via Art Is Any Big Deal. Truffaut Died, And We All Felt Awful About It, And There Were The Appropriate Eulogies, And His Wonderful Films Live On. But It’s Not Much Help To Truffaut.

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.

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.

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.

No, No, I'm A Lowbrow. I Read [dostoevsky] More Out Of Obligation Than Enjoyment. For Enjoyment, For Me, It's A Beer And The Football Game.

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

Sex Is The Most Fun You Can Have Without Laughing.

Some Drink Deeply From The River Of Knowledge. Others Only Gargle.

Why Does Man Kill? He Kills For Food. And Not Only Food: Frequently There Must Be A Beverage.

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

Money Is Not Everything, But It Is Better Than Having One's Health.

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 Never Thought I Was Doing Anyone A Favour By Bringing Children Into The World. With People As Cruel To Each Other As They Are, It's A Terrible Proposition. The Best Of Lives Are Sad And Tragic. The Best Of Them. My General Conclusion Is That It's Not A Nice Thing To Do. The World Doesn't Need It. The Kid Doesn't Need It.

Life Is Like A Concentration Camp... You Can't Leave Without Dying.

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.

I've Never Had A Block. I'm Talking Within The Limits Of My Abilities. But In My Own Small Way, I've Had An Embarrassment Of Riches. I'll Have Five Ideas And I'm Dying To Do Them All. It Takes Weeks Or Months Where I Agonize And Obsess Over Which To Do Next. I Wish Sometimes Someone Would Choose For Me. If Someone Said, Do Idea Number Three Next, That Would Be Fine. But I Have Never Had Any Sense Of Running Dry.

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.

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

I Love Baseball. You Know, It Doesn’t Have To Mean Anything. It’s Just Very Beautiful To Watch.

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

I'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.

The Less I Speak To The Actors, The Better. And I Always Hire Great People, And I Don't Want To Impose My Pre-conceived Notions On Them. They Know How To Play It.

History Is The Same Thing Over And Over Again.

Fitness Motivational

Temporary Insanity

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

The Whole Concept Of Awards Is Silly. I Cannot Abide By The Judgment Of Other People, Because If You Accept It When They Say You Deserve An Award, Then You Have To Accept It When They Say You Don't.

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

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

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.

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

I Do Believe That Reality Is Dreadful And That You Are Forced To Choose It In The End Or Go Crazy, But That It Kills You.

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.

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.

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 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 Sued American Apparel Because They Calculatingly Took My Name, My Likeness And Image And Used Them Publicly To Promote Their Business.

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

I Don't Respond Well To Mellow, You Know What I Mean, I Have A Tendency To... If I Get Too Mellow, I Ripen And Then Rot.

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

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.

For A While We Pondered Whether To Take A Vacation Or Get A Divorce. We Decided That A Trip To Bermuda Is Over In Two Weeks, But A Divorce Is Something You Always Have.

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

Once Munching Has Begun, Schopenhauer Held, The Human Will Cannot Resist Further Munching, And The Result Is A Universe With Crumbs Over Everything.

There's No Point In Looking Back, Because There's Nothing You Can Really Do To Improve The Film. You Can Only Aggravate And Wish You Had Done Stuff Better.

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.

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.

Why Not? Life Is Short, Life Is Dull, Life Is Full Of Pain - And This Is A Chance For Something Special.

What If Nothing Exists And We're All In Somebody's Dream?

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.

Because It's Much More Pleasant To Be Obsessed Over How The Hero Gets Out Of His Predicament Than It Is Over How I Get Out Of Mine.

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

Take The Money And Run.

We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices.

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

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

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

Sex Is Better Than Talk. Ask Anybody In This Bar. Talk Is What You Suffer Through So You Can Get To Sex.

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

Writing Is Great Because In The Writing You Never Have To... First Of All You Never Have To Leave Your Home. And You Never Have To Meet The Test Of Reality When You're Writing.

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

You Know How You're Always Trying To Get Things To Come Out Perfect In Art Because It's Real Difficult In Life

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.

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.

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

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.

My Success Has Allowed Me To Strike Out With A Higher Class Of Women.

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

It's All Through The Actors; I Cannot Write In That Idiom

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

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.

You Can't Work At A Relationship; You Can't Control It. You Have To Be Lucky And Go Through Your Life. If You Are Not Lucky You Have To Be Prepared For Some Degree Of Suffering. That's Why Most Relationships Are Very Difficult And Have Some Degree Of Pain. People Stay Together Because Of Inertia, They Don't Have The Energy. Because They Are Frightened Of Being Lonely, Or They Have Children.

I Keep Getting More And More Ambitious. Over The Years, To Some Degree, In Some Areas, I Feel I've Grown. In Some Areas, I Made A Fool Of Myself. In Some Areas, I Think I Can Still Do Some Funny Things.

The Last Time I Was Inside A Woman Was When I Went To The Statue Of Liberty.

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.

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

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

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.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach. And Those Who Can't Teach, Teach Gym.

How The Hell Do I Know Why There Were Nazis? I Don't Know How The Can-opener Works.

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

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.

Child Molestation Is A Touchy Subject... Read The Papers! Half The Country's Doing It!

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

Is Old Age Really So Terrible? Not If You've Brushed Your Teeth Faithfully.

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

What People Who Don't Write Don't Understand Is That They Think You Make Up The Line Consciously — But You Don't. It Proceeds From Your Unconscious. So It's The Same Surprise To You When It Emerges As It Is To The Audience When The Comic Says It. I Don't Think Of The Joke And Then Say It. I Say It And Then Realize What I've Said. And I Laugh At It, Because I'm Hearing It For The First Time Myself.

Tradition Is The Illusion Of Permanance.

A General Philosophy Of The Female Characters In My Films Is They All Want Something To Believe In, And Not Having Anything.

I Don't Like To Meet The Actor And Have A Lot Of Conferences And Talk About Their Sub-life And Their Off-screen Life And Their Back Stories And All That Nonsense, Because It Never Means Anything.

Eternal Nothingness Is Fine If You Happen To Be Dressed For It.

I Wouldn't Necessarily Want To Be A Big Muscular Guy. It's Nice To Be Gorgeous Whether You're Male Or Female Assuming You Don't Lose Whatever Else You Have.

I Enjoy The Making Of The Film And It's Something For Me To Do. If Nobody Ever Comes To My Films, If People Don't Want To Give Me Money To Make Films, That Will Stop Me. But As Long As People Come All Over The World And I Have An Audience And I Have Ideas For Films, I Will Do Them For As Long As I Enjoy The Process. And I Like The Whole Process Of Making A Film.

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

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

Should I Marry W.? Not If She Won't Tell Me The Other Letters In Her Name.

I Carry A Bullet In My Breast Pocket. Once, A Crazy Evangelist Threw A Bible At Me, Which Would Have Gone Through My Heart If It Wasn't For The Bullet.

I'm A Big Believer In Supporting The Action On Film With The Appropriate Music. It Covers A Multitude Of Sins. It's Gotten Me Out Of A Lot Of Jams, Over The Years. So, Music For Me Is A Very Big Thing In Films And I Use It Unashamedly.

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.

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

Meaning Of Life

I Am Not Afraid Of Death. I Just Don't Want To Be There When It Happens.

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.

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.

In Short, The Best Thing To Do Is Behave In A Manner Befitting One's Age. If You Are Sixteen Or Under, Try Not To Go Bald.

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

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

I've Always Been Interested In Being In Other People's Movies. I Never Get Any Offers.

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.

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.

Is It Better To Be The Lover Or The Loved One? Neither, If Your Cholesterol Is Over Six Hundred. By Love, Of Course, I Refer To Romantic Love -- The Love Between Man And Woman, Rather Than Between Mother And Child, Or A Boy And His Dog, Or Two Headwaiters.

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.

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

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

I Do The Movies Just For Myself Like An Institutionalized Person Who Basket-weaves. Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers. I Don't Care About The Films. I Don't Care If They're Flushed Down The Toilet After I Die.

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.

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

Expressing Anger

As I Got More Confident, I Was Able To Let Actors Improvise, And Do Long Takes. It's 10%, 5% You Learn And Experience. The Rest You Just Have Or You Don't Have.

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

In My House I'm The Boss, My Wife Is Just The Decision Maker.

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

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