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There's Nothing Like The Discovery Of An Unknown Work By A Great Thinker To Set The Intellectual Community Atwitter And Cause Academics To Dart About Like Those Things One Sees When Looking At A Drop Of Water Under A Microscope.

-Woody Allen

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There's Nothing Like The

Woody Allen

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There's Nothing Like The Discovery Of An Unknown Work By A Great Thinker To Set The Intellectual Community Atwitter And Cause Academics To Dart About Like Those Things One Sees When Looking At A Drop Of Water Under A Microscope.

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

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.

I Have A Great Admiration For English Actors And Actresses And Have Used Them At Every Opportunity Over The Years, But Now I Won't Have To Import Them To New York.

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

Is World Peace Possible Or Is The Human Race Too Innately Aggressive? For Instance: Have You Ever Seen Women At A Sample Sale?

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

Paris Is Particularly Beautiful In The Rain. It Was Just A Nice Experience For Me, A Pleasant Experience, And I Was Able To Present It To The World Through My Eyes, Very Subjectively - Not Realistically, But Subjectively.

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

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

I Know Of Only Six Genuine Comic Geniuses In Movie History; Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx & Harpo Marx, Peter Sellers, And W.c. Fields.

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

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.

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.

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

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

When I Was Kidnapped, My Parents Snapped Into Action. They Rented Out My Room.

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.

I Was Walking Through The Woods, Thinking About Christ. If He Was A Carpenter, I Wondered What He Charged For Bookshelves.

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

I Loathed Every Day And Regret Every Day I Spent In School. I Like To Be Taught To Read And Write And Add And Then Be Left Alone.

I Hate The Beach. I Hate The Sun. I'm Pale And I'm Redheaded. I Don't Tan - I Stroke!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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...

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

[...] 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.

Your Audience Teaches You How To Be Funny.

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.

People Are Always Talking About The Dumbing Down Of The Country.

A "bay Area Bisexual" Told Me I Didn't Quite Coincide With Either Of Her Desires.

Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone. Every Once In Awhile He Needs A Salad.

Ninety Percent Of Life Is Just Showing Up.

Fitness Motivational

I Had A Mad Impulse To Throw You Down On The Lunar Surface And Commit Interstellar Perversion With You.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Don't Want To Achieve Immortality Through My Work; I Want To Achieve Immortality Through Not Dying. I Don't Want To Live On In The Hearts Of My Countrymen; I Want To Live On In My Apartment.

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.

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.

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

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

I Can Live In Paris For Four Months Or London Or, You Know, Barcelona. These Are Places That Are Like New York. But I Don't Think I Could Live In Many Places. When I Had To Make A Film In The United States I Picked San Francisco Because To Me It's One Of The Great Cities Of America.

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.

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.

90 Per Cent Of Success Is Turning Up.

As An Artist, You Are Always Striving Toward An Ultimate Achievement But Never Seem To Reach It. You Shoot A Film, And The Result Could Have Always Been Better. You Try Again, And Fail Once More. In Some Ways I Find It Enjoyable. You Never Lose Sight Of Your Goal. I Don’t Do My Job To Make Money Or To Break Box Office Records, I Simply Try Things Out. What Would Happen If I Were To Achieve Perfection At Some Point? What Would I Do Then?

[stanley] Kubrick Was A Great Artist And A Perfectionist. He Always Wanted The Exact Right Thing. He Did A Million Takes. Everything Had To Be Perfect. I'm An Imperfectionist. I Don't Really Care That Much About The Work. I Write Quickly. I'm Careless. I Shoot Carelessly.

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?

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

Subjectivity Is Objective.

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.

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

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

I Have No Regard For That Kind Of Ceremony. I Just Don't Think They Know What They're Doing. When You See Who Wins Those Things-or Who Doesn't Win Them-you Can See How Meaningless This Oscar Thing Is.

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

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.

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

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

I Prefer The Magic To Reality, And Have Since I Was 5 Years Old. Hopefully, I Can Continue To Make Films And Constantly Escape Into Them.

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

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.

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

I Said This To My Daughter, If You Don't Practice The Guitar, When You Get Older You Wouldn't Be Able To Play It. It's That Simple. If You Want To Play The Guitar, You Put A Half Hour In Everyday, But You Have To Do It.

Not Think Of Death As An End, But Think Of It More As A Very Effective Way Of Cutting Down On Your Expenses.

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.

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.

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.

I Never Think I Feel Cynical In General. Cynical Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling. I Feel There's A Gigantic Amount Of Injustice And Overt Crime Every Day In The World, From Emotional Crimes To International Crimes, And It Often Carries Rewards.

Marriage Is Like Mushrooms: We Notice Too Late If They Are Good Or Bad.

Dying Is One Of The Few Things That Can Be Done As Easily Lying Down.

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.

Sex Alleviates Tension. Love Causes It.

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

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.

We Knew The Front Door Was Always Left Open, But We Broke In Just To Keep In Practice. Doxy Turned All The Washburn Family Photos To The Wall So There Wouldn't Be Any Witnesses.

I Loathed Every Day And Regret Every Moment I Spent In A School.

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

Mysterious Universe

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

To Be A Film Director Is Not A Democracy, It's Really A Tyranny. You're The Head Of The Project, For Better Rather Than Worse. I Write The Film And I Direct The Film, I Decide Who's Going To Be In It, I Decide On The Editing, I Put In The Music From My Own Record Collection.

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

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.

At The Trial Stubbs Chose To Act As His Own Lawyer, But A Conflict Over His Fee Led To Ill Feelings.

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.

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 See The Glass Half Full...but Of Poison.

When A Film Is Reviled, You Open A Film And People Say "oh, It's The Stupidest Thing, It's The Worst Movie." You Think: Oh, Nobody's Going To Ever Speak To You Again. But, It Doesn't Happen. Nobody Cares. You Know, They Read It And They Say "oh, They Hated Your Film." You Care, At The Time. But They Don't. Nobody Else Cares.

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 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.

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.

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.

Sygmnd Was A Poor Austrian Who'd Lost All The Vowels In His Name In A Boating Accident.

After 60, All Of Us Belong To The Weaker Sex.

Paranoia Is Knowing All The Facts.

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.

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.

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.

I Don't Get Depressed; I Grow A Tumor Instead.

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

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

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

What Advice Would I Give The Average Homeowner To Protect Himself Against Burglars? Well, The First Thing Is To Keep A Light On In The House When You Go Out. It Must Be At Least A Sixty-watt Bulb; Anything Less And The Burglar Will Ransack The House, Out Of Contempt For The Wattage.

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.

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

The Heart Is A Very, Very Resilient Little Muscle. It Really Is.

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

Does Art Imitate Life, Or Does Life Imitate Tv?

The Wicked At Heart Probably Know Something.

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.

We Live In Far Too Permissive A Society. Never Before Has Pornography Been This Rampant. And Those Films Are So Badly Lit!

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

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

I've Gained No Wisdom, No Insight, No Mellowing. I Would Make All The Same Mistakes Again, Today.

All I Have In My Life Is My Imagination

When It Comes To Sex There Are Certain Things That Should Always Be Left Unknown, And With My Luck, They Probably Will Be.

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

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.

If The World Is A Progressively Realized Community Of Interpretation, Then Either Quadruplictity Will Drink Procrastination Or, Provided That The Nothing Negates, Boredom Will Ensue Seldom More Often Than Frequently.

Procrastination

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

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

What Has Gotten Into You Lately? Save A Little Craziness For Menopause!

I Believe There Is Something Out There Watching Us. Unfortunately, It's The Government.

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

Expressing Anger

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.

The Dictatorship Is Shut Up, Democracy Is Always Concerned.

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.

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.

Comedians Have A Tendency To Have A Limited Range, They Tend To Do One Thing And Do It Very Well, But It's Limited.

Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Foresee Death By Culture Shock.

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

My Parents Stayed Together For Forty Years. But That Was Out Of Spite.

My Wife Is Immature. Whenever I Take A Bath, She Sinks My Boats.

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

Funny Inspirational

The History Of The World Is Like: He Kills Me, I Kill Him, Only With Different Cosmetics And Different Castings. So In 2001, Some Fanatics Killed Some Americans, And Now Some Americans Are Killing Some Iraqis. And In My Childhood, Some Nazis Killed Jews. And Now, Some Jewish People And Some Palestinians Are Killing Each Other.

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

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

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

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

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.

I Can Levitate Birds. No One Cares.

You're So Good Looking I Can Barely Keep My Eyes On The Meter.

I Learned A Few Things On My Own Since, And Modified Some Of The Things He Taught Me, But Everything, Unequivocally, That I Learned About Comedy Writing I Learned From Danny Simon.

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.

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.

Money Is Better Than Poverty, If Only For Financial Reasons.

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

Playing It Safe

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.

You Can't Ride Two Horses With One Behind.

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

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

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

Cynicism Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling.

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

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.

Take The Money And Run.

I'm Awash In Self-contempt!

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

There's No Rhyme Or Reason To Anything That I Do. It's Whatever Seems Right At The Time.

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'm A Comedian. I Make Comic Films And There Are Certain Ideas That Occur To Me That Are Comic, With Heavy, Serious Undertones. There Are Some Ideas That Are More Frivolous To Me. The Next Idea That Could Occur To Me Could Be Comedy About Death And Famine Or Something.

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

I'm A Nice Person! I Have Healthy Life Drives And Goals! I Don't Drink, I Don't Smoke. I Would Never Force Myself Sexually On A Blind Person!

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.

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.

I Didn't Go To Paris Until I Was A Grown-up In 1965. And When I Went To Paris, It Was The Paris I Knew Only From American Movies.

I Have A Number Of Symptoms That Are Neurotic And Are Constricting In The Sense That If I Had A Brilliant Idea For A Film That Had To Be Shot In Tulsa, Ok I Would Tear It Up And Throw It Away. Anything Outside Of New York, 'cause I Can't Exist In A Hotel Outside Of My Own Home, I Have To Be In My Own Home And My Own Environment. This Is A Neurotic Symptom That Is Constricting To My Work Even.

There Is Something About Big Cities That Turns Me On, And For Whatever Mysterious Reason, Places Like New York And Paris Inspire Me. I Think It's Because Cities Represent Civilization, And As Crime-ridden And Broken Down As Some Of Them Are, It's Still Better Than Skipping Through A Meadow.

"boy, The Food At This Place Is Really Terrible." The Other One Says, "yeah, I Know; And Such Small Portions." Well, That's Essentially How I Feel About Life - Full Of Loneliness, And Misery, And Suffering, And Unhappiness, And It's All Over Much Too Quickly.

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.

Curiosity, That's What Kills Us. Not Muggers Or All That Bullshit About The Ozone Layer. It's Our Own Hearts And Minds.

What If Everything Is An Illusion And Nothing Exists? In That Case, I Definitely Overpaid For My Carpet.

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.

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

Maugham Then Offers The Greatest Advice Anyone Could Give To A Young Author: "at The End Of An Interrogation Sentence, Place A Question Mark. You'd Be Surprised How Effective It Can Be."

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

All Over The World, Relationships Between Men And Women Are Very, Very Tricky And Very Difficult And You Don't Learn Anything. It's Not An Exact Science, So You Can't Learn Anything. You're Always Going By Instinct And Your Instinct Betrays You Because You Want What You Want When You Want It.

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

Better Not Think Too Much. Relying More On The Body: It Is More Trustworthy.

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

Love Is Too Weak A Word For What I Feel - I Luuurve You, You Know, I Loave You, I Luff You, Two F's, Yes.

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