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These Were Always Obsessions Of Mine, Even As A Very Young Child. These Were Things That Interested Me As The Years Went On. My Friends Were More Preoccupied With Social Issues - Issues Such As Abortion, Racial Discrimination, And Communism - And Those Issues Just Never Caught My Interest. Of Course They Mattered To Me As A Citizen To Some Degree...but They Never Really Caught My Attention Artistically.

-Woody Allen

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These Were Always Obsessions

Woody Allen

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These Were Always Obsessions Of Mine, Even As A Very Young Child. These Were Things That Interested Me As The Years Went On. My Friends Were More Preoccupied With Social Issues - Issues Such As Abortion, Racial Discrimination, And Communism - And Those Issues Just Never Caught My Interest. Of Course They Mattered To Me As A Citizen To Some Degree...but They Never Really Caught My Attention Artistically.

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Subjectivity Is Objective.

Enthusiasm Is A Good Engine, But It Needs Intelligence For A Driver.

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.

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

I Know What I Think But I Don't Know How To Put It Into Words. Maybe I Could Get A Little Bit Drunk And Dance It For You.

Confidence Is What You Have Before You Understand The Problem.

There's Nothing Sexier Than A Lapsed Catholic.

For Some Reason I'm More Appreciated In France Than I Am Back Home. The Subtitles Must Be Incredibly Good.

Life Is Horrible, But It Is Not Relentlessly Black From Wire To Wire. You Can Sit Down And Hear A Mozart Symphony, Or You Can Watch The Marx Brothers, And This Will Give You A Pleasant Escape For A While. And That Is About The Best That You Can Do.

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 Think Hollywood Has Gone In A Disastrous Path. It's Terrible. The Years Of Cinema That Were Great Were The '30s, '40s, Not So Much The '50s...but Then The Foreign Films Took Over And It Was A Great Age Of Cinema As American Directors Were Influenced By Them And That Fueled The '50s And '60s And '70s.

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

I Think Crime Pays. The Hours Are Good, You Travel A Lot

I Want To Return To The Womb, Anyone's.

I Tended To Place My Wife Under A Pedestal.

Everyone Wants To Get Out Of Living Where They're Living Now, Because Life Is A Pretty Tough Proposition And Not Much Fun. But When You Think Back To Earlier Times, You Only Extrapolate The Nice Things.

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.

In The Event Of War, I'm A Hostage.

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

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.

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.

How Is It Possible To Find Meaning In A Finite World, Given My Waist And Shirt Size?

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out To Get You.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Don't Like To Reminisce Much, And My Walls Don't Have Photographs Of Me And The Actors I Was With, Or Any Of That Stuff... I Try And Keep That Disciplined, And Just Work. There Are So Many Traps You Can Get Into, And Looking Back On Your Own Work Is Certainly One Of Them.

It Seems To Me That Making Escapist Films Might Be A Better Service To People Than Making Intellectual Ones And Making Films That Deal With Issues. It Might Be Better To Just Make Escapist Comedies That Don't Touch On Any Issues. The People Just Get A Cool Lemonade, And Then They Go Out Refreshed, They Enjoy Themselves, They Forget How Awful Things Are And It Helps Them - It Strengthens Them To Get Through The Day.

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've Never Felt Truth Was Beauty. Never. I've Always Felt That People Can't Take Too Much Reality. I Like Being In Ingmar Bergman's World. Or In Louis Armstrong's World. Or In The World Of The New York Knicks. Because It's Not This World. You Spend Your Whole Life Searching For A Way Out. You Just Get An Overdose Of Reality, You Know, And It's A Terrible Thing. I'm Always Fighting Against Reality.

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 Work All The Time Because It's A Great Distraction And It Keeps Me From Sitting Home And Obsessing Morbidly.

I Am Thankful For Laughter, Except When Milk Comes Out Of My Nose.

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

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.

For God Sakes, This Is A Woman I Was Married To For 10 Years. We Made Love. I'd Hold Her Head Over The Toilet Bowl When She Threw Up.

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

If Only God Would Give Me Some Clear Sign! Like Making A Large Deposit In My Name At A Swiss Bank.

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.

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.

I Should Have Known Something Was Wrong With My First Wife. When I Brought Her Home To Meet My Parents, They Approved Of Her.

Sometimes The Critics Will Like A Film, And The Public Doesn't Come. Sometimes The Critics Won't Like The Film, And The Public Will Come. It's Completely Spontaneous. It's A Hazard.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

If You Pursue The Other Woman, It's A Losing Situation And It's Not Good For Your Relationship Or Your Marriage. If Your Marriage Is Open And You're Allowed To, That's No Good Either. There's No Way, Really In The End, To Be Happy Unless You Get Very Lucky.

It Is Impossible To Travel Faster Than Light, And Certainly Not Desirable, As One’s Hat Keeps Blowing Off.

You Can Be With Your Wife, Very Happily Married, And Then You Meet Some Woman And You Love Her. But You Love Your Wife, Too. And You Also Love That One. Or If She's Met Some Man And She Loves The Man And She Loves You. And Then You Meet Somebody Else And Now There Are Three Of You. Why Only One Person?

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.

Productive Life

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.

To Me There’s No Real Difference Between A Fortune Teller Or A Fortune Cookie And Any Of The Organized Religions. They’re All Equally Valid Or Invalid, Really. And Equally Helpful.

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

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

It Has Become Harder And Harder In The United States To Make Films Unhampered By Outside Influences. I've Always Been Able To Steer Clear Of That And Keep The Business People Out Of My Hair Completely.

I Don't Have To 'freedom-kiss' My Wife When What I Really Want To Do Is French-kiss Her.

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.

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?

No Matter What You Do There Will Be Critics.

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

You Make Films Whether They're Dramas Or Comedies About Neurotic People. Flawed People. Interesting Personality Traits. To Make Them About Calm, Stable Untroubled People Isn't Interesting.

If I Just Got Up In The Morning And Had No Place To Go And Was Retired Or Something, I Would Be Sitting There And Be Thinking, "gee, What Is The Purpose Of Life? Why Are We All Finite? Why Do We Get Old And Die? Is There Nothing Out There? Why Is It So Tragic? Why Do Our Loved Ones Perish? Why Do We Generate?" Who Wants To Think About That Stuff?

I Was The Captain Of The Latent Paranoid Softball Team. We Used To Play All The Neurotics On Sunday Morning. Nailbiters Against The Bedwetters, And If You've Never Seen Neurotics Play Softball, It's Really Funny. I Used To Steal Second Base, And Feel Guilty And Go Back.

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.

My Relationship With Death Remains The Same - I'm Strongly Against It.

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

Real Life Is Generally Much Duller And Inevitably Sadder, Most Of The Time. In Film, You Control Everything That's Going On, So You Can Indulge The Most Fantastic, Romantic, Escapist Feelings And Fantasies. You Can Do Anything You Want. That's Why It's Very Seductive And Pleasurable To Earn Your Living Making Movies Because You're Not Living In The Real World.

Showing Up Is 80 Percent Of Life.

The Audience Goes To Sleep Really Quickly! If You Have A Slight Pause At The Wrong Time, That's It!

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.

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

The Jewish Culture - People That Are Jewish Have A Certain Cultural Habit That They've Formed And One Of Those Habits Is An Appreciation Of Theater And Music - These Are Cultural Things One Does Associate With Values That Are Promulgated By Jewish Families. I Think That's A Good Thing.

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.

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.

I Always Feel, I Guess Being A Product Of The Movies Of The 40s Where Movies Were The Greatest Things And Screens Were Big And Palaces Were Palaces And Stars Were Larger Than Life That Reality Was So Much Inferior To What We Felt Was Conceivably Possible From What We Had Seen In The Movies.

Larger Than Life

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

[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.

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.

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.

Most Of The Time I Don't Have Much Fun. The Rest Of The Time I Don't Have Any Fun At All.

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.

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

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

When I First Started, There Were Writers That I Looked Up To That I Felt Very Influenced By And Very Respectful Toward Their Work And Their Opinion Of My Work.

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

We Are All Interested In The Future, For That Is Where You And I Are Going To Spend The Rest Of Our Lives.

Books And Movies

I'm Going To My Psychoanalyst One More Year, Then I'm Going To Lourdes.

Music Has Always Helped My Films. In 'the Curse Of The Jade Scorpion,' You Can Hear 'sunrise' By Glenn Miller, An Idol Of My Childhood, In The Surprise Ending. I Like Mixing Comedy With Suspense And Action.

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

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

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.

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.

It Seemed The World Was Divided Into Good And Bad People. The Good Ones Slept Better While The Bad Ones Seemed To Enjoy The Waking Hours Much More.

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.

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.

Bisexuality Immediately Doubles Your Chances For A Date On Saturday Night.

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

Existence For Eternity Could Get A Little Boring... Especially Towards The End.

I Had A Terrible Education. I Attended A School For Emotionally Disturbed Teachers.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

To Love Is To Suffer. To Avoid Suffering One Must Not Love. But Then One Suffers From Not Loving. Therefore, To Love Is To Suffer. Not To Love Is To Suffer.

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

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.

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

If You Can Delude Yourself By Believing That There Is Some Kind Of Santa Claus Out There Who Is Going To Bail You Out In The End, Then It Will Help You Get Through. Even If You Are Proven Wrong In The End, You Would Have Had A Better Life Than A Non-believer.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

You Are Always A Comedian By Default. You Are This Way Because You've Been Forced To Be This Way, But It Is Better To Be The Hero. So If You Can Be A Persona, The Great One Of My Lifetime Of Course Was And Is Marlon Brando.

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

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

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

I'm Giving [my Analyst] One More Year--then I'm Going To Lourdes.

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.

Your Audience Teaches You How To Be Funny.

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

I Don't Inhale Because It Gives You Cancer, But I Look So Incredibly Handsome With A Cigarette That I Can't Not Hold One.

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

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

Don't Knock Masturbation. It's Sex With Someone I Love.

Honey! Bring Down A Copy Of My Will - And An Eraser!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

There Is Dignity In Suffering; Nobility In Pain; But Failure Is A Salted Wound, That Burns And Burns Again!

The Prison Psychiatrist Asked Me If I Thought Sex Was Dirty. I Told Him Only When It's Done Right.

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

I'm So Excited-i Think Today I'm Going To Brush All My Teeth.

If You Meet Somebody And Are Attracted To Someone, And The Exquisite Neurons In Your Brain And Her Brain Intermesh Properly, Then Things Can Be Wonderful. It's Not Like Homework. You Don't Have To Work At The Relationship.

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

And My Parents Finally Realize I'm Kidnapped And They Snap Into Action Immediately: They Rent Out My Room.

I Always Thought That As Long As Man Is Mortal, He Will Never Be Relaxed.

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

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

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.

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

But What If Everyone In The World Behaved Like Me And Came Here And Shot Brisseau Through The Ear? What A Mess! And Of Course We'd Need Valet Parking.

Please Forgive Me. My Pedicurist Had A Stroke. She Fell Forward Onto The Orange Stick And Plunged It Into My Toe. It Required Bandaging.

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

I Foresee Death By Culture Shock.

Eternity Is Really Long, Especially Near The End.

Who's The Bigger Idiot, The Idiot Or The Idiot Who Gets Fooled By The Idiot?

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.

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

To Me, Movies Are Valuable As An Art Form And As A Wonderful Means Of Popular Entertainment. But I Think Movies Have Gone Terribly Wrong.

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

Love May Be The Answer, But Even Though You're Watching For The Solution, Intercourse Raises Some Rather Interesting Thoughts.

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

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

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

My Education Was Dismal. I Went To A Series Of Schools For Mentally Disturbed Teachers.

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

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

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

The Best Things In Life Are Censored.

Best Things In Life

I Think Being Funny Is Not Anyone's First Choice.

If Man Were Immortal, Do You Realize What His Meat Bills Would Be?

It's Funny. Maria Elena And I, We Are Meant For Each Other And Not Meant For Each Other, It's A Contradiction.

I've Inherited The Worst Of Each Parent. I Have My Father's Hypochondria And Lack Of Concentration. I Have His Amorality. I Have Everything Bad That He Had. Then I Have My Mother's Surly, Pill-like, Complaining, Whining Attitude.

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

If 90% Of Success In Life Is Showing Up, The Other 10% Depends On What You're Showing Up For.

Your Self-esteem Is A Notch Below Kafka.

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.

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

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

I Never Considered Myself An Artist. I Aspire To Be An Artist, But I Never Thought I Had The Depth Or Substance Or Gift To Be An Artist. I Do Think I Have Some Talent, But It Doesn't Go As Far As Being An Artist.

Someday The Lion Is Going To Lie Down With The Lamb, But The Lamb Isn't Going To Get Much Sleep.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

When You Make The Film, It's Like A Chef Who Works On The Meal. After You're Working All Day In The Kitchen And Dicing And Cutting And Putting The Sauces On, You Don't Want To Eat It. That's How I Always Feel About The Films. I Work On It For A Year. I've Written It, I've Worked With The Actors, I've Edited, Put The Music In. I Just Never Want To See It Again.

My Parents Were Very Old World. They Come From Brooklyn, Which Is The Heart Of The Old World. Their Values In Life Are God And Carpeting.

Just Don't Take Any Class Where You Have To Read Beowulf.

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

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

Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up.

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