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

-Woody Allen

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This Is My Perspective

Woody Allen

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

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I Think It's My Job Or The Artist's Job, To Try And Find Some Solution Or Some Reason To Accept Things. But Given The Grimmest Reality, I Feel The Grimmest Facts Are The Real Facts, The True Facts: That You're Born, You Die, You Suffer, It's To No Purpose, And You're Gone Forever, Ever, Ever, And That's It.

Rather Than Live On In The Hearts And Minds Of My Fellow Man, I Would Rather Live On In My Apartment.

I Was In Analysis. I Was Suicidal. As A Matter Of Fact, I Would Have Killed Myself, But I Was In Analysis With A Strict Freudian And If You Kill Yourself They Make You Pay For The Sessions You Miss.

I Like Broad Comedy. If I Had An Idea Tomorrow For A Film That Was All Slapstick And Broad Comedy, And It Was An Idea That Interested Me, I Would Not Hesitate To Do It Because I Enjoy Watching These Kinds Of Film.

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

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

There Is Always The Possibility That People Will Change. Real Change Is More Rare. You Are Who You Are At A Certain Age In Life You Are Pretty Much A Variation Of That Your Whole Life. It's Conceivable That You Will Change But It's Not Likely.

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.

Yes, But The Difference Is That When You're Dead And Somebody Yells, 'everybody Up, It's Morning,' It's Very Hard To Find Your Slippers.

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.

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.

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.

I Think Universal Harmony Is A Pipedream And It May Be More Productive To Focus On More Modest Goals, Like A Ban On Yodeling.

Relationships Are Really What Interest Me The Most. And I Think, In The End, They Interest Most People The Most. Even When You Read Tolstoy Or Something, Basically They're About Man And Woman Relationships.

Chastity Is Curable, If Detected Early.

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.

This Year I'm A Star, But What Will I Be Next Year? A Black Hole?

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.

A Stockbroker Is Someone Who Invests Other People's Money Until It Is All Gone.

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

Sentence Structure Is Innate, But Whining Is Acquired.

When I Asked My Mother Where Babies Came From, She Thought I Said Rabies. She Said You Get Them From Being Bitten By A Dog. The Next Week, A Woman On My Block Gave Birth To Triplets... I Thought She'd Been Bitten By A Great Dane.

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.

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...

You Look Up After Many Years And You Find That A Film Has Become A Classic Because It's Meaningful To People And Alive, Decade After Decade.

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

Some Guy Hit My Fender, And I Told Him, 'be Fruitful And Multiply,' But Not In Those Words.

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.

It's Just Gossip, You Know. Gossip Is The New Pornography.

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.

The True Test Of Maturity Is Not How Old A Person Is But How He Reacts To Awakening In The Mid-town Area In His Shorts.

American Films, It's A Money-making Industry. And In France, You Can Find Great Respect For Cinema As Art.

The Artist's Job Is Not To Succumb To Despair But To Find An Antidote For The Emptiness Of Existence.

I Was Nauseous And Tingly All Over. I Was Either In Love Or I Had Smallpox.

There's Nothing Wrong With You That A Little Prozac And A Polo Mallet Can't Cure.

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

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

For Me Personally - Because I Do It Myself - The Scoring Of A Picture Is Fun. I Edit The Picture And When I've Finished I Go Into My Room And I Have Many Many Records - Jazz, Classical And Popular Music. And I Have This All At My Disposal. I Don't Have To Get A Composer.

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.

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.

My Luck Is Getting Worse And Worse. Last Night, For Instance, I Was Mugged By A Quaker.

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.

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.

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 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

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

I Prefer To Achieve Immortality By Not Dying.

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

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

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

The Wicked At Heart Probably Know Something.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Subjectivity Is Objective.

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

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.

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.

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

Playing It Safe

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.

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.

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

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

People 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 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.

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

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.

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

I Can't Imagine Any Director Directing A Screenplay Of Mine, Because The Great Directors All Have Very Personal Styles, And The Ones That Don't Are Not Very Interesting Directors.

It's A Match Made In Heaven...by A Retarded Angel.

Should I Marry W? Not If She Won't Tell Me The Other Letters In Her Name. And What About Her Career? How Can I Ask A Woman Of Her Beauty To Give Up The Roller Derby? Decisions...

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

During The Course Of The Year A Number Of Ideas Just Come Up Automatically. I Could Be Walking Down The Street. Or Shaving. An Idea Will Hit Me And I'll Write It Down. Then, When I'm Ready To Write, I Check My Little Matchbooks And Napkins And Find That It Is Good Or It's Pretty Terrible. There Are Other Times When I Don't Have Any Ideas And I'll Go Into A Room And Close The Door And I Sit And Sweat It Out For A Day Or A Month And Eventually I Come Up With [something].

None Of The Arts Are Any Good Unless You Really Are Great At Them.

My Films Are A Form Of Psychoanalysis, Except That It Is I Who Am Paid, Which Changes Everything.

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.

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

How Can I Believe In God When Just Last Week I Got My Tongue Caught In The Roller Of An Electric Typewriter?

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.

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

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

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.

The Most Important Words In The English Language Are Not 'i Love You' But 'it's Benign.'

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.

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

I Have An Intense Desire To Return To The Womb. Anybody's.

He Was So Depressed, He Tried To Commit Suicide By Inhaling Next To An Armenian.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

By Now They Had Mastered My Own Language, But They Still Made Simple Mistakes, Like Using 'hermeneutics,' When They Meant 'heuristic'.

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.

My Lord, My Lord! What Hath Thou Done Lately?

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.

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

What If The Worst Is True? What If There's No God, And You Only Go Around Once, And That's It? Don't You Want To Be A Part Of The Experience? You Know, What The Hell? It's Not All A Drag, And I'm Thinking To Myself: Geez! I Should Stop Ruining My Life Searching For Answers I'm Never Gonna Get And Just Enjoy It While It Lasts. And, You Know, After-who Knows? Maybe There Is Something, Nobody Really Knows. I Know That Maybe Is A Very Slim Reed To Hang Your Whole Life On, But That's The Best We Have.

One Man Starving Puts A Crimp In My Evening.

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

That (sex) Was The Most Fun I Ever Had Without Laughing.

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.

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.

I've Always Believed That Thoughtful People Don't Really Take The Tabloids Seriously. They're Basically A Form Of Entertainment. I Enjoy Them As Much As The Next New Yorker.

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.

Life Is Divided Into The Horrible And The Miserable.

90 Per Cent Of Success Is Turning Up.

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

Marriage Is The Death Of Hope.

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

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

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

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

I'm Sure There Are People In Hollywood, Whose Main Drive In Film Is To Make Money, Who Will Feel That Any Use Of The Word Hijacking Or Any Reference To Anything Violent Or Remotely Associated With The Terrible Tragedy That Occurred Will Lose Customers For Them. And That Will Be The Only Criterion That Will Matter And So They'll Force The Minions That Work For Them To Remove These Things From Their Movies, Or Not Make Movies About That Subject.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Expressing Anger

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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 Always Thought It Would Be Very Funny If I Was A Blind Film Director.

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.

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

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.

I Am Told The Settlement Of $5 Million I Am Being Paid Is The Largest Amount Ever Paid Under The New York Right To Privacy Law

I Always Felt That The Problems Of The World Would Never Ever Be Solved Until People Came To Terms With The Deeper Issues [spiritual] - That There Would Be An Aimless Reshuffling Of World Leaders And Governments And Programs.

I Read In Self-defense.

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.

I Think I've Gotten Technically Better Over The Years But You'd Have To Be A Fool Not To. I've Made So Many Movies That By Sheer Quantity You Get Better At The Technique.

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

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.

Those Who Can't Do, Teach!

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

It's A Wonderful Thing To Be Able To Create Your Own World Whenever You Want To.

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.

In My Next Life I Want To Live Backwards. Start Out Dead And Finish Off As An Orgasm.

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

The Whole Country Was Tied Together By Radio. We All Experienced The Same Heroes And Comedians And Singers. They Were Giants.

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.

People Think I'm An Artist Because My Films Lose Money.

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

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

Until You've Been Kissed On A Rainy Parisian Afternoon - You've Never Been Kissed.

Never Been Kissed

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

Figures Tell Us There Are Already More People On Earth Than We Need To Move Even The Heaviest Piano.

I Have Great Faith In The Actors. When They Improvise, It Always Sounds Better Than The Stuff I Write In My Bedroom. When They Improvise, They Make It Sound Alive.

As The Poet Said, 'only God Can Make A Tree,' Probably Because It's So Hard To Figure Out How To Get The Bark On.

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

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.

The Man Who Said 'i'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good' Saw Deeply Into Life. People Are Afraid To Face How Great A Part Of Life Is Dependent On Luck. It's Scary To Think So Much Is Out Of One's Control. There Are Moments In A Match When The Ball Hits The Top Of The Net And For A Split Second It Can Either Go Forward Or Fall Back. With A Little Luck It Goes Forward And You Win. Or Maybe It Doesn't And You Lose.

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

A Tree Never Hits An Automobile Except In Self Defense.

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'd Never Join A Club That Would Allow A Person Like Me To Become A Member.

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.

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

I 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 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.

The Content Dictates The Style All The Time. That's The Way It Is. If The Content Of The Film - As In Husbands And Wives - Is Highly Jagged, Neurotic, Fast-paced, Nervous New York Film, It Just Called For That Kind Of Shooting, Editing And Performance.

Remember, If You Smoke After Sex You're Doing It Too Fast.

I Wish I Was Writing Something Much More Heavy Each Time I Did A Film, And That The Comedies Just Occasionally Come Out. But Unfortunately You're Stuck With What You're Born With.

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

The Only Love That Lasts Is Unrequited Love.

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.

When You Start Putting A Higher Value On Works Of Art Than People, You’re Forfeiting Your Humanity.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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Katherine Mansfield

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