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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.

-Woody Allen

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There's A Tacit Agreement

Woody Allen

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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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I Think That The Tendency For Most People Is To Fall Back On A Comic Interpretation Of Things Because Things Are So Sad, So Terrible. If You Didn't Laugh You'd Kill Yourself. But The Truth Of The Matter Is That Existence In General Is Very Very Tragic, Very Very Sad, Very Brutal And Very Unhappy.

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Subjectivity Is Objective.

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.

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I'm Awash In Self-contempt!

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

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.

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My Father Owned A Small Piece Of Land. He Carried It With Him Wherever He Went.

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

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Is Knowledge Knowable? If Not, How Do We Know?

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.

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

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I Can't Understand Why More People Aren't Bisexual. It Would Double Your Chances For A Date On Saturday Night.

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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

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.

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I Don't Want To Live Forever Through My Work. I Want To Live Forever By Not Dying.

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.

We Stand At A Crossroads. One Path Leads To Despair, The Other To Destruction. Let's Hope We Make The Right Choice.

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.

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

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

Fantasy Is Seductive And Much More Wonderful Than Reality, But You Can't Take It To The Bank. It's Always An Escape. And If Used As An Escape, As In Attending A Movie Or A Show For A Circumscribed Period Of Time, It's Fine. When It Starts To Become Undifferentiated From Reality, It Leads To Big Trouble.

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.

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Dissatisfaction

Capital Punishment Would Be More Effective As A Preventive Measure If It Were Administered Prior To The Crime.

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Procrastination

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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.

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

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He's A Politician. That's A Notch Below Child Molester.

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.

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Honey, There's A Spider In Your Bathroom The Size Of A Buick.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Visually I've Always Liked The 20s 30s For Film. I Do These Because I Like The Music. I Like The Clothes. I Like The Way The Women And The Guys Look. There Are Soldiers And Sailors And Gangsters With The Machine Guns In Their Violin Cases. It's A Very Colorful Era Of New York, Full Of Great Theater And Great Nightclubs And Great Jazz.

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.

I Think A Relationship Is Like A Shark. It Has To Constantly Move Forward Or It Dies.

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.

Some Women Feel Power Is Important, Some Women Feel That Looks Are Important, Tenderness, Intelligence...but Sense Of Humor Seems To Permeate All Of Them.

When A Man Is Driving In A Car And Looks Out The Window And Notices A Woman With A Great Body, As He Strains To Check Her Face Out, How Does She Know To Keep Turning So The Back Of Her Head Is Always Toward Him?

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

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

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

Culturally Speaking, I Was Raised In A Jewish Household. In Addition To The Religious Side Of It, I Was Taught Respect For Books And Learning And The Higher Professions Like Medicine And Law And Teaching.

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.

Error, No Keyboard. Press F1 To Continue.

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.

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.

My Heart Says One Thing. My Head Says Another. Very Hard To Get Your Heart And Head Together In Life.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Fictional Character

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

I Did Not Marry The First Girl That I Fell In Love With, Because There Was A Tremendous Religious Conflict, At The Time. She Was An Atheist, And I Was An Agnostic.

There's Nothing Sexier Than A Lapsed Catholic.

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 Foresee Death By Culture Shock.

Side Effects Not Only Is There No God, But Try Getting A Plumber On The Weekend. Woody Allen Sex Alleviates Tension. Love Causes It.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

You Rely Too Much On Brain. The Brain Is The Most Overrated Organ.

The Only Thing That Does Change, To Some Degree, Is [that] You Have Some Life Experiences, You Suffer A Certain Amount And You Incorporate That Into Your Work. Not In The Content Of Your Work, But In The Sensibility Of Your Work. It's Nothing That You Try And Do; It Just Happens. And If You're Lucky, People Buy Tickets To See It, And If You're Not Lucky, [then] They Don't Like It. But That's All.

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

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.

I'm Really A Timid Person - I Was Beaten Up By Quakers

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'.

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

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

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

Taste My Tuna Casserole - Tell Me If I Put In Too Much Hot Fudge.

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

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.

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.

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.

My Brain? It's My Second Favorite Organ!

Your Audience Teaches You How To Be Funny.

You're A Genius! And The Proof Is That Both Common People And Intellectuals Find Your Work Completely Incoherent.

Bisexuality Doubles Your Chances Of A Date On A Saturday Night. I Believe That Sex Is A Beautiful Thing Between Two People. Between Five, It's Fantastic. If There Is Reincarnation, I'd Like To Come Back As Warren Beatty's Fingertips. I'm Such A Good Lover Because I Practice A Lot On My Own. My Love Life Is Terrible. The Last Time I Was Inside A Woman Was When I Visited The Statue Of Liberty. Sex Without Love Is An Empty Experience, But As Empty Experiences Go It's A Pretty Good One.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

My Films Are Misinterpreted All The Time. I Don't Mind That. Everybody's Films Are Misinterpreted. But There's No Malice Or Stupidity In The People That Misinterpret Them. You Know What You Do, But Someone Else Sees It, And They Want To Talk About It Or Write About It, And So They Misinterpret Them.

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

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.

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

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

All People Know The Same Truth. Our Lives Consist Of How We Choose To Distort It.

Funny Inspirational

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I Do Occasionally Envy The Person Who Is Religious Naturally, Without Being Brainwashed Into It Or Suckered Into It By All The Organized Hustles.

I Was A Smart Kid And I Was Not Understood By My Parents.

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

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

If My Films Make One More Person Miserable, I'll Feel I Have Done My Job.

The Heart Wants What It Wants.

Inspirational Love

The Chief Problem About Death, Incidentally, Is The Fear That There May Be No Afterlife - A Depressing Thought, Particularly For Those Who Bothered To Shave. Also, There Is The Fear That There Is An Afterlife But No One Will Know Where It's Being Held. On The Plus Side, Death Is One Of The Few Things That Can Be Done As Easily Laying Down.

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

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.

My Grandfather Was A Very Insignificant Man, Actually. At His Funeral His Hearse Followed The Other Cars.

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 Think Bergman's Films Have Eternal Relevance, Because They Deal With The Difficulty Of Personal Relationships And Lack Of Communication Between People And Religious Aspirations And Mortality, Existential Themes That Will Be Relevant A Thousand Years From Now. When Many Of The Things That Are Successful And Trendy Today Will Have Been Long Relegated To Musty-looking Antiques, His Stuff Will Still Be Great.

You Use Sex To Express Every Emotion Except Love.

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.

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

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.

[...] 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.

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.

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

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

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