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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?

-Woody Allen

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You Can Be With

Woody Allen

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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?

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I Had An Iq Test. The Results Came Back Negative.

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.

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

Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

She Wore A Short Skirt And A Tight Sweater And Her Figure Described A Set Of Parabolas That Could Cause Cardiac Arrest In A Yak.

If God Exists, I Hope He Has A Good Excuse.

Talent Is Luck. The Important Thing In Life Is Courage.

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

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

If I Could Change The Structure Of Existence I Would Do It. I Could See A Better Way To Live For Everybody.

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.

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.

Your Still Searching For Me In Every Woman. You'll Always Seek To Duplicate What We Had. You Know It.

I Can Understand That An Audience, Buying A Ticket To See A Picture Of Mine, Wants To See Something Funny Because They Feel Confident That At Least I Have A Fighting Chance To Make A Funny Film When I Make A Film, Whereas If I Make A Dramatic Film There's One Chance In A Thousand That It's Really Going To Come Out Great, So I Understand How They Feel About That And They're Completely Right.

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

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.

Nothing Worth Knowing Can Be Understood With The Mind.

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.

I Can Make Films. And Some Of Them Come Out Good, And Some Of Them Come Out Better, And Some Of Them Come Out Worse. But I've Been Very Lucky Over The Years To Be Able To Sustain The Length Of Career That I've Had.

I'm Awash In Self-contempt!

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.

The Best An Idea Gets Is When Its In Your Head.

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.

If You Aren't Failing, You Aren't Trying.

The Universe Is Merely A Fleeting Idea In God's Mind -- A Pretty Uncomfortable Thought, Particularly If You've Just Made A Down Payment On A House.

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

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

I'd Like To Make A Great Movie. I've Made Many Movies. I Think I've Made Some Good Movies, But I Never Felt I've Made A Great Movie.

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

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.

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

Doing Abominations Is Against The Law, Particularly If The Abominations Are Done While Wearing A Lobster Bib.

I Don't Believe In An Afterlife, But I'm Taking An Extra Pair Of Underwear Just In Case.

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

Meaning Of Life

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.

The Great Roe Is A Mythological Beast With The Head Of A Lion And The Body Of A Lion, Though Not The Same Lion.

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

I See No Advantages In Aging Whatsoever. You Become Shriveled. You Become Decrepit. You Lose Your Faculties. Your Peer Group Passes Away. You Sit In A Room Gumming Your Porridge. I Don't See Any Advantage In This Whatsoever.

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

Abysmal Vermin That I Am, I Couldn't Of Course Tell Her That It Was Her Incredible Mother That I Wanted To See Again… I Knew Only As I Drove Through The Cold, Night Autumn Air That Somewhere Freud, Sophocles And Eugene O’neill Were Laughing.

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.

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

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.

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

I Would Not Like To Live In The Past Because You Don't Get Anesthetic When You Go To The Dentist. You Don't Get Antibiotics. You Don't Get The Things That You Are Used To Now, Cell Phones And Televisions And Things That Are Very Convenient. You Don't Want That. But, It Would Be Fun If You Could, Every Now And Then, Just Meet A Friend For Lunch At Maxim's In Paris In 1900, Or Go Back To 1870 Just For A Couple Of Hours, Take A Walk In The Park, And Then Come Right Back To Broadway.

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.

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 Can't With Any Conscience Argue For New York With Anyone. It's Like Calcutta. But I Love The City In An Emotional, Irrational Way, Like Loving Your Mother Or Your Father Even Though They're A Drunk Or A Thief. I've Loved The City My Whole Life - To Me, It's Like A Great Woman.

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.

Between The Pope And Air Conditioning, I'd Choose Air Conditioning.

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

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 Wish I Could Think Of A Positive Point To Leave You With. Will You Take Two Negative Points?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Drama, It Would Be As If You Wrote Some Poetry. You'd Run The Risk Of Being Embarrassed If People Read It, Because You're Pouring Your Heart Out And You're Not Mitigating It With Any Humor Or Anything.

My Relationship With American Audiences Is The Exact Same As It Always Has Been. They Never Came To See My Films, And They Don't Come Now.

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

When You Make The Film, There's A Big Difference Between When You're In Your Own Home At The Typewriter, And When You're Standing On A Mountain, Or On A Street Corner, And Buses Are Coming By-it's A Different Reality. You Make A Million Changes That Were Never In The Script, But That Reality Dictates.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices.

The Difference Between Sex And Death Is, Death You Can Do Alone And Nobody Laughs At You.

I Don't Why Whatever Works And Whatever Doesn't. You Just Make The Film That You Enjoy Making At The Time, And You Think There's A Good Chance That People Might Enjoy The Story. You're Surprised Pleasantly When They Do. It's Just Luck.

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

Well, If I Don't Get At Least 16 Hours, I'm A Basket Case.

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.

It's Important To Control Yourself Because Life Gets Too Complicated If You Don't, But The Impulse Is Often There For People. Some Say Society Should Be More Open. That Doesn't Work Either.

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

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?

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.

Error, No Keyboard. Press F1 To Continue.

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

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

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.

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

I Write About What I Want To Write About, And So The Film Comes Out As A Very Personal Expression Even If Its Subject Matter Is Totally Prefabricated.

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

I Took A Speed-reading Course And Read War And Peace In Twenty Minutes. It Involves Russia.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

There's An Old Joke - Um... Two Elderly Women Are At A Catskill Mountain Resort, And One Of 'em Says, "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.

The Last Woman I Was In Was The Statue Of Liberty.

While We're Waiting For A Cab I'll Give You Your Lesson For Today. Don't Listen To What Your Teachers Tell Ya, You Know. Don't Pay Attention. Just, Just See What They Look Like And That's How You'll Know What Life Is Really Gonna Be Like.

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

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

I'm Not A Drinker, My Body Won't Tolerate...eh...spirits, Really. I Had Two Martinis New Years Eve And I Tried To Hi-jack An Elevator And Fly It To Cuba.

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

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 Prefer To Achieve Immortality By Not Dying.

All The Crap They Tell You About... Getting Joy And Having A Kind Of Wisdom In Your Golden Years - It's All Tripe.

You Mellow Too Much You Ripen And Rot.

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?

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.

There Are Worse Things In Life Than Death. Have You Ever Spent An Evening With An Insurance Salesman?

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

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.

Cynicism Is Reality With An Alternate Spelling.

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

How Wrong Emily Dickinson Was! Hope Is Not "the Thing With Feathers." The Thing With Feathers Has Turned Out To Be My Nephew. I Must Take Him To A Specialist In Zurich.

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

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

Never Been Kissed

He's A Genius, She's A Genius, Wow, You Know Alot Of Geniuses, You Should Meet Some Stupid People Sometime, You Might Learn Something

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

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

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

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

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

You'll Find As You Go Through Life That Great Depth And Smoldering Sensuality Don't Always Win.

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

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

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.

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

Life Is For The Living.

I Came Home One Night, Some Month Ago, And I Went To The Closet In My Bedroom...and A Moth Ate My Sports Jacket. He Was Laying On The Floor, Nauseous, Y'know.

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.

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.

Geez, I Should Stop Ruining My Life Searching For Answers I'm Never Gonna Get, And Just Enjoy It While It Lasts.

Enjoy It While It Lasts

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

There Are Three Rings Involved With Marriage. The Engagement Ring, The Wedding Ring, And The Suffering.

I Don't Know What I'm Doing, But My Incompetence Has Never Stopped My Enthusiasm.

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.

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

Take The Money And Run.

Change Is Almost Always Negative. Things Degenerate.

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

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.

[the Universe Is] Haphazard, Morally Neutral, And Unimaginably Violent.

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.

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 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.

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

My Grammy Never Gave Gifts, You Know. She Was Too Busy Getting Raped By Cossacks.

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

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

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.

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

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.

When I Started Out, I Was A Television Writer, And We Wrote A Television Show That Was On Live Every Week. And You Didn't Have The Luxury Of Coming In And Waiting To Be Inspired. You Came In And You Had To Write. And You Wrote, Because It Was Going To Be Live On The Air. So I Can Do That.

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

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.

Therefore, To Be Unhappy One Must Love, Or Love To Suffer, Or Suffer From Too Much Happiness. I Hope You're Getting This Down.

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

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.

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

I'm A Teleological, Existential Agnostic.

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

Isn't All Mankind Ultimately Executed For A Crime It Never Committed?

Capital Punishment

Marriage? That's For Life! It's Like Cement!

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.

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.

90 Per Cent Of Success Is Turning Up.

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.

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.

As I've Gotten Older, The Parts Have Diminished. I Liked It When I Was Younger, I Could Always Play The Lead In The Movie And I Could Do All The Romantic Scenes With The Women, And It Was Fun And I Liked To Play That. Now, I'm Older And I'm Reduced To Playing The Backstage Doorman Or The Uncle Or Something. I Don't Really Love That So Occasionally, When A Part Comes Up, I'll Play It.

Never Shoot Up In The Air When You're Standing Under It.

Don't Think Of Death As An Ending. Think Of It As A Really Effective Way Of Cutting Down Your Expenses.

I Think If You Have A Comic Perspective, Almost Anything That Happens You Tend To Put Through A Comic Filter. It's A Way Of Coping In The Short Term, But Has No Long Term Effect And Requires Constant, Endless Renewal. Hence People Talk Of Comics Who Are "always On." It's Like Constantly Drugging Your Sensibility So You Can Get By With Less Pain.

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

Life Is Full Of Moments That Are Good - Winning A Lottery, Seeing A Beautiful Woman, A Great Dinner - But The Whole Thing Is Tragic. It's An Oasis That Is Very Pleasant.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Myself Don't Like To Speak To The Actors At All. I Like To Hire Great People And Let Them Do Their Thing. I Don't Like To Speak To Them. I Don't Like To Have Lunch With Them. I Don't Like To Socialize With Them. I Don't Like To Hear Their Ideas.

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

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

I'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

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

In Order To Be Successful, All You've Got To Do Is Show Up 80 Percent Of The Time.

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.

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.

Real Software Engineers Don't Debug Programs, They Verify Correctness. This Process Doesn't Necessarily Involve Execution Of Anything On A Computer, Except Perhaps A Correctness Verification Aid Package. Sex Without Love Is An Empty Experience, But, As Empty Experiences Go, It's One Of The Best.

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

Retirement Is A Very Subjective Thing. There Are Guys I Know Who Retire And They're Very Happy And They Never Miss Work At All. I Can't See Myself Retiring And Fondling A Dog Every Day. I Like To Get Up And Work And Go Out. I Have Too Much Energy Or Too Much Nervous Anxiety Or Something. So I Don't See Myself Retiring. Maybe I Will Suddenly Get A Stroke Or A Heart Attack And I Will Be Forced To Retire, But If My Health Holds Out I Don't Expect To Retire.

When You Travel Around The Country, You See What A Tough Town New York Is: Rude, Competitive, A Town Where Good, Logical Ideas Are Ignored In Favor Of Unworkable Ones. And Yet, All These Other Towns Are So Dead And Boring Compared To New York.

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