The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have instead of what you don't have.
Honey you're the one who stopped sleeping with me OK? It'll be a year come April 20th. I remember the date exactly because it was Hitler's birthday
I should have known something was wrong with my first wife. When I brought her home to meet my parents they approved of her.
Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man I would rather live on in my apartment.
I don't wanna live on in my work. I wanna live on in my apartment.
I sued American Apparel because they calculatingly took my name my likeness and image and used them publicly to promote their business.
As the author you know how you want it to appear on screen and it's always the content dictating the form.
Life doesn't imitate art it imitates bad television.
I'm trying to arrange my life so I don't have to be present.
He was so depressed he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian.
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.
A "Bay Area Bisexual" told me I didn't quite coincide with either of her desires.
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.
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.
You can't control life. It doesn't wind up perfectly. Only-only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert.
I can't express anger. I grow a tumor instead.
It's a match made in heaven...by a retarded angel.
If you take a frown and turn it upside down the person you are holding by the ankles will soon pass out.
To me nature is... spiders and bugs and big fish eating little fish and plants eating plans and animals eating... It's like an enormous restaurant that's the way I see it.
I was in analysis for years because of a traumatic childhood; I was breast-fed through falsies.
I'm giving [my analyst] one more year--then I'm going to Lourdes.
My analyst warned me but you were so beautiful I got another analyst.
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 am an only child. I have one sister.
You're still in love' 'No I'm not I'm not She'll always be a part of me and she's an important person in my life but for the two of us something wasn't working.' 'What element?' 'We never found out
Life is short. Short and not about anything except what you can touch and what touches you.
Early in life I was visited by the bluebird of anxiety
People still have existential anxiety. It just may not be expressed in Hebraic idiom.
The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.
You can't anticipate in the room the riches of what you encounter when you're location hunting for a movie.
I'm not anti-social. I'm just not social.
I want to return to the womb anyone's.
I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.
I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody's.
My heart says one thing. My head says another. Very hard to get your heart and head together in life.
I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100.
Geez I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get and just enjoy it while it lasts.
I don't know the question but sex is definitely the answer.
Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.
I got a divorce because my ex-wife left me for another woman.
You always think another time would have been ideal for you . . . the reality is there was no novocaine when you went to the dentist.
A tree never hits an automobile except in self defense.
Sygmnd was a poor Austrian who'd lost all the vowels in his name in a boating accident.
Do I believe in God? I did until Mother's accident. She fell on some meat loaf and it penetrated her spleen.
I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.
My mother never had time for me. When you're the middle child in a family of five million you don't get any attention.
Men learn to love the woman they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they fall in love with.
Man cannot live by bread alone. Every once in awhile he needs a salad.
Inertia accounts for two-thirds of marriages. But love accounts for the other third.
Believing would be easier if God would show himself by depositing a million dollars in a Swiss bank account in my name
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.
This stuff tastes awful; I could have made a fortune selling it in my health-food store.
Have you ever noticed that good people sleep better but bad people seem to have more fun when they're awake?
As a boy I was ashamed to wear glasses. I memorized the eye chart and then on the test they asked essay questions.
Sex without love is a meaningless experience but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.
None of the arts are any good unless you really are great at 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.
That's one of the nice things about writing or any art; if the thing's real it just lives.
When you start putting a higher value on works of art than people you're forfeiting your humanity.
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.
People make films for different reasons. For money. Or they make them because something in them demands artistic expression. I do it because I enjoy the work.
Does art imitate life or does life imitate TV?
You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it's real difficult in life
I wouldn't mind dying so much if it wasn't that I would be dead at the end of it.
Astronomers say the universe is finite which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things.
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.
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.
How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
To you I'm an atheist; to God I'm the Loyal Opposition.
I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.
Human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations like poetry and philosophy but the body has all the fun.
I wouldn't necessarily want to be a big muscular guy. It's nice to be gorgeous whether you're male or female assuming you don't lose whatever else you have.
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.
Ads answered out of desperation in the New York Review of Books proved equally futile asâ?¦the 'Bay Area Bisexual' told me I didn't quite coincide with either of her desires.
I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light.
Is old age really so terrible? Not if you've brushed your teeth faithfully.
I did not marry the first girl that I fell in love with because there was a tremendous religious conflict at the time. She was an atheist and I was an agnostic.
I'm a teleological existential agnostic.
Is world peace possible or is the human race too innately aggressive? For instance: Have you ever seen women at a sample sale?
Sex and death are two things that come but once in my lifetime but at least after death you're not nauseous.
After 60 all of us belong to the weaker sex.
I'm not afraid to die I just don't want to be there when it happens.
It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.
I don't believe in the after life although I am bringing a change of underwear.
History is the same thing over and over again.
Dying is like making love except you don't get naseous afterwards.
Until you've been kissed on a rainy Parisian afternoon - you've never been kissed.
The chief problem about death ... is the fear that there may be no afterlife - a depressing thought.
I don't believe in an afterlife but I'm taking an extra pair of underwear just in case.
I keep wondering if there is an afterlife and if there is will they be able to break a twenty?
There's no correlation between what the public likes and what I'm after. I'm in a different world.
I'm afraid of the dark and suspicious of the light.
I am not afraid of death I just don't want to be there when it happens.
I prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
If you're born with a gift to behave like it's an achievement is not right.
Death is an acquired trait.
Sentence structure is innate but whining is acquired.
Achilles only had an Achilles heel. I have an entire Achilles body.
Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.
Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.
Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.
Skeptic that I was as an adolescent I had recently come to believe in a Supreme Being after thumbing through a Victoria's Secret catalogue.
Doing abominations is against the law particularly if the abominations are done while wearing a lobster bib.
See I never gain an ounce because you know my anxiety acts like aerobics.
It's all through the actors; I cannot write in that idiom
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
I don't like theatrical actors and actresses. I like people that talk like real human beings.
For some reason it gives people pleasure to equate the life of certain movie actors or actresses with their actual lives.
Our love our love will last forever. It's forever but it just doesn't work. That's why it will always be romantic because it can not be complete.
My mind can never know my body although it has become quite friendly with my legs.
For some reason I'm more appreciated in France than I am back home. The subtitles must be incredibly good.
I am two with nature.
I am plagued by doubts.
For some reason I've always had an irrational love for New York. There's no reason that you would necessarily like it on paper. It's very expensive.
What was the scandal? I fell in love with this girl married her. We have been married for almost 15 years now.
The prettiest women are almost always the most boring and that is why some people feel there is no God.
Don't worry I know almost exactly what I'm doing.
Change is almost always negative. Things degenerate.
Cynicism is reality with an alternate spelling.
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.
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.
The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless what can be done about alphabet soup?
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
The audience is making the film and not the film-maker.
Your audience teaches you how to be funny.
I have a hyper-active imagination my mind tends to jump around a little and I have some trouble between fantasy and reality.
Life is unresolved confusing bewildering puzzling ambiguous. You don't really know what's going to happen. The future is uncertain for everybody.
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.
American films it's a money-making industry. And in France you can find great respect for cinema as art.
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.
My success has allowed me to strike out with a higher class of women.
¿Existe el Infierno? ¿Existe Dios? ¿Resucitaremos después de la muerte? Ah no olvidemos lo más importante: ¿Habrá mujeres allí?
Between the Pope and air conditioning I'd choose air conditioning.
Never shoot up in the air when you're standing under it.
I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
Side Effects Not only is there no God but try getting a plumber on the weekend. Woody Allen Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
All the crap they tell you about... getting joy and having a kind of wisdom in your golden years - it's all tripe.
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
All i have in my life is my imagination
Isn't all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed?
Paranoia is knowing all the facts.
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'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.
I was a nervous child I was a bedwetter. I used to sleep with an electric blanket and I was constantly electrocuting myself.
I always thought it would be very funny if I was a blind film director.
I'm a nice person! I have healthy life drives and goals! I don't drink I don't smoke. I would never force myself sexually on a blind person!
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.
I can levitate birds. No one cares.
This year I'm a star but what will I be next year? A black hole?
If my soul exists without my body I am convinced all my clothes will be loose-fitting
Is there a separation between body and mind and if so which is it better to have?
Man consists of two parts his mind and his body only the body has more fun.
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.
Then Job fell to his knees and cried to the Lord "Thine is the kingdom and the power and glory. Thou hast a good job. Don't blow it.
It is impossible to travel faster than light and certainly not desirable as one's hat keeps blowing off.
If I could change the structure of existence I would do it. I could see a better way to live for everybody.
Money is not everything but it is better than having one's health.
In a relationship it is better to be the leaver than the leavee.
We live in far too permissive a society. Never before has pornography been this rampant. And those films are so badly lit!
I don't rely on anybody except my own judgment. I don't get much input. I don't know if that's helped me or if I would be better off if I did rely on someone.
The study of economy usually shows us that the best time for purchase was last year
The best things in life are censored.
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.
Sex without love is an empty experience but as empty experiences go it's one of the best.
Some of the best memories of my childhood that I have are the times that I played hooky from school so I could spend my days in the public library reading all the wonderful books at my disposal.
One of the interesting things is the most gifted people the biggest people have no problem taking small roles.
Who's the bigger idiot the idiot or the idiot who gets fooled by the idiot?
If man were immortal do you realize what his meat bills would be?...
Spencer was searching for a woman interested in gold inorganic chemistry outdoor sex and the music of Bach. In short he was looking for himself only female.
The only thing standing between me and greatness is me.
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
In Beverly Hills... they don't throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
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 always write the same way. I always write with a yellow pad and a ballpoint pen on my bed. And then I go and type it up afterwards. I've always done that. Those things become habitual.
My grandfather had a wonderful funeral... On the buffet table there was a replica of the deceased in potato salad.
What is so fascinating about sitting around watching a bunch of pituitary cases stuff a ball through a hoop?
Curiosity that's what kills us. Not muggers or all that bullshit about the ozone layer. It's our own hearts and minds.
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.
His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.
I didn't know he was dead; I thought he was British.
Where I grew up in Brooklyn nobody committed suicide. Everyone was too unhappy.
I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers and they are going to make a game out of it.
Am I my brother's keeper? Yes. Interestingly in my case I share that honor with the Prospect Park Zoo.
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.
My grammy never gave gifts you know. She was too busy getting raped by Cossacks.
My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night for instance I was mugged by a quaker.
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.
Raised by two mothers...wow most of us barely survive one
You're so good looking I can barely keep my eyes on the meter.
I never wanted to or expected to make a film outside of New York. New York became very very expensive. The same $18 million spent in Barcelona or Rome goes much further there.
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.
When a doctor makes a mistake it's best to bury the subject.
There is dignity in suffering; nobility in pain; but failure is a salted wound that burns and burns again!
Sex is better than talk. Ask anybody in this bar. Talk is what you suffer through so you can get to sex.
Who bothers to cook TV dinners? I suck them frozen.
What is it about death that bothers me? Probably the hours.
I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
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.
I was walking through the woods thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.
In my house I'm the boss my wife is just the decision maker.
I think universal harmony is a pipedream and it may be more productive to focus on more modest goals like a ban on yodeling.
Existence for eternity could get a little boring... especially towards the end.
Having sex is like bridge. If you don't have a good partner you'd better have a good hand.
Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner you'd better have a good hand.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.
I feel about New York as a child whose father is a bank robber. Not perfect but I still love him.
Honey! Bring down a copy of my will - and an eraser!
You know it's one thing about intellectuals they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on.
You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ.
My brain? That's my second favorite organ.
I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.
Life's hard then you die.
You can't ride two horses with one behind.
My father owned a small piece of land. He carried it with him wherever he went.
Whosoever loveth wisdom is righteous but he that keepeth company with fowl is weird.
In my next life I want to live backwards. Start out dead and finish off as an orgasm.
It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better [Cloquet thought ] while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.
I hate the beach. I hate the sun. I'm pale and I'm redheaded. I don't tan - I stroke!
The best an idea gets is when its in your head.
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.
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.
I am thankful for laughter except when milk comes out of my nose.
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 was a smart kid and I was not understood by my parents.
I love baseball. You know it doesn't have to mean anything. It's just very beautiful to watch.
I think you should defend to the death their right to march and then go down and meet them with baseball bats. (On the KKK)
When we played softball I'd steal second base feel guilty and go back.
Honey there's a spider in your bathroom the size of a Buick.
My wife is immature. Whenever I take a bath she sinks my boats.
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.
My films are therapy for my debilitating depression. In institutions people weave baskets. I make films.
Well if I don't get at least 16 hours I'm a basket case.
Basically I am a low-culture person. I prefer watching baseball with a beer and some meatballs.
Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.
When I was born my mother was terribly disappointed. Not that she wanted a girl - she wanted a divorce.
I don't get depressed; I grow a tumor instead.
When I'm not working I think and I think when I get depressed.
I'm at the stage of life when if a girl says no to me I'm profoundly grateful to her.
I'm so excited-I think today I'm going to brush all my teeth.
What' s the matter with me? Why can't I be cool?
The great roe is a mythological beast with the head of a lion and the body of a lion though not the same lion.
I've had bad luck in my two previous marriages. The first wife left me and the second did not.
I've always been interested in being in other people's movies. I never get any offers.
Marriage is like mushrooms: we notice too late if they are good or bad.
I do occasionally envy the person who is religious naturally without being brainwashed into it or suckered into it by all the organized hustles.
Another good thing about being poor is that when you are seventy your children will not have you declared legally insane in order to gain control of your estate.
Sometimes some of the best moments are contributed by the actors being creative with their own improvisations.
Is sex dirty? Only when it's being done right.
Your self-esteem is a notch below Kafka.
He's a politician. That's a notch below child molester.
I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.
For a while we pondered whether to take a vacation or get a divorce. We decided that a trip to Bermuda is over in two weeks but a divorce is something you always have.
Me sitting down for dinner with Ingmar Bergman felt like a house painter sitting down with Picasso.
My wife and I thought we were in love but it turned out to be benign
The most important words in the English language are not 'I love you' but 'it's benign.'
I'm very old-fashioned. I believe that people should stay married for life like pigeons and Catholics.
I believe people ought to mate for life...like pigeons or Catholics.
I didn't believe in reincarnation in my past life and I still don't.
I don't believe in God. Just try getting a plumber on the weekend.
Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.
I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately it's the government.
I'm not a big believer in the sense of Jews having a monopoly on comedy.
Can you believe that? She says I'm not leader enough for her. Who was she looking for... Hitler?
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.
For the first year of marriage I had basically a bad attitude. I tended to place my wife underneath a pedestal.
Just because youre paranoid doesnt mean they arent out to get you
Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing.
If there is reincarnation I'd like to come back as Warren Beatty's fingertips.
I'd call him a sadistic hippophilic necrophile but that would be beating a dead horse.
I'm really a timid person - I was beaten up by Quakers
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.
I believe that sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five it's fantastic.
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.
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.
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.
Once munching has begun Schopenhauer held the human will cannot resist further munching and the result is a universe with crumbs over everything.
I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.
The baby is fine. The only problem is that he looks like Edward G. Robinson.
Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun milk red meat...college
No no I'm a lowbrow. I read [Dostoevsky] more out of obligation than enjoyment. For enjoyment for me it's a beer and the football game.
Don't think of death as an ending. Think of it as a really effective way of cutting down your expenses.
Science is an intellectual dead end you know? It's a lot of little guys in tweed suits cutting up frogs on foundation grants.
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
In California they don't throw their garbage away - they make it into TV shows.
It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.
My grandfather was a very insignificant man actually. At his funeral his hearse followed the other cars.
Taste my tuna casserole - tell me if I put in too much hot fudge.
There's nothing sexier than a lapsed Catholic.
Photons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
I believe people ought to mate for lifelike pigeons or Catholics.
How does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly would certain restaurants still require a jacket?
Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!
90 per cent of success is turning up.
When it comes to sex there are certain things that should always be left unknown and with my luck they probably will be.
Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.
Show business is dog eat dog. It's worse than dog eat dog. It's dog doesn't return dog's phone calls.
Chastity is curable if detected early.
I was thrown out of NYU for cheating-with the deans wife
I had an IQ test. The results came back negative.
I failed to make the chess team because of my height.
Heaven knows we all make mistakes. That's life - and chess.
Child molestation is a touchy subject... Read the papers! Half the country's doing it!
Humorists always sit at the children's table.
There are three things Jewish people worship-God Chinese food and wall-to-wall carpeting.
I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants.
Life is like a concentration camp... you can't leave without dying.
Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors.
When one chooses to be a writer psychologically there's a reason for that because you like the isolation and you like to be by yourself and you are by nature timid.
At the trial Stubbs chose to act as his own lawyer but a conflict over his fee led to ill feelings.
Standing in a garage no more makes you a car than standing in a church makes you a Christian.
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.
I took a puff of the wrong cigarette at a fraternity dance once and the cops had to get me y'know. I broke two teeth trying to give a hickie to the Statue of Liberty.
I'm a creature of the New York City streets.
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.
Just don't take any class where you have to read BEOWULF.
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!
I can't do anything to death doctor's orders.
I've never dated a fictional character before. The closest I ever came was an Italian.
I can't even make a leap of faith to believe in my own existence.
I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. I'm 237 years old I should be collecting social security.
Sylvia Plath. Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality.
I can't understand why more people aren't bisexual. It would double your chances for a date on Saturday night.
Problems are like toilet paper. You pull on one and ten more come.
Comedians have a tendency to have a limited range they tend to do one thing and do it very well but it's limited.
The whole country was tied together by radio. We all experienced the same heroes and comedians and singers. They were giants.
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 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.
The comedies are not a million laughs on the set. Its business and the dramas are business as well really. When I'm writing it I struggle more with drama because I started out in comedy.
Comedy just pokes at problems rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes comedy is rather the dessert a bit like meringue.
I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysenery.
I had a mad impulse to throw you down on the lunar surface and commit interstellar perversion with you.
You're a genius! And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent.
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.
Nothing like a little post-traumatic stress disorder to make your day complete.
The less I speak to the actors the better. And I always hire great people and I don't want to impose my pre-conceived notions on them. They know how to play it.
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.
The dictatorship is shut up democracy is always concerned.
I should go to Paris and jump off of the Eiffel Tower. If I took the Concorde I could be dead three hours earlier.
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.
. . . they confuse everything I do with my life.
The government is unresponsive to the needs of the little man. Under 5' 7" it is impossible to get your congressman on the phone.
I just can't listen to any more Wagner you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.
All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.
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.
I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius our humanity our love and honesty.
I'm awash in self-contempt!
Fantasy is only a state of mind that you can employ when existing in a real context.
Error no keyboard. Press F1 to continue.
I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said 'No.
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'.
It's funny. Maria Elena and I we are meant for each other and not meant for each other it's a contradiction.
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.
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.
There is no justice there is no rational structure to it [life]. That is just the way it is and each person figures out some way to cope with it...
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.
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.
All my life is passing in front of my eyes. The worst part of it is I'm driving a used car.
Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage.
I have one last request. Don't use embalming fluid on me; I want to be stuffed with crab meat.
I usually want to crawl into the ground after I make a film almost invariably.
What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!
It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to.
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 wonder if Socrates and Plato took a house on Crete during the summer.
I think crime pays. The hours are good you travel a lot
No Matter what you do there will be critics.
We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to despair the other to destruction. Let's hope we make the right choice.
God is either cruel or incompetent.
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 foresee death by culture shock.
There's nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can't cure.
The curtain rises on a vast primitive wasteland not unlike certain parts of New jersey.
Death should not be seen as the end but as a very effective way to cut down expenses.
I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.
Arlene and I have to get a divorce. She thinks I'm a pervert because I drank our water bed.
If my films don't show a profit I know I'm doing something right.
I cannot say for certain that God does not exist; I think the worst thing that can be said about him is that he's a bit of an underachiever.
I have no idea what I am doing but incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.
Remember if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.
If you are not failing now and again its a sign you are not doing anything very innovativeÂ
If you're not failing every now and again it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.
But it was I yes I who discovered the link between excessive masturbation and entry into politics!
Where did we come from? Where are we going? Is there possibility of a group discount?
I work all the time because it's a great distraction and it keeps me from sitting home and obsessing morbidly.
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.
What do I dislike about death? Must be the hours.
With me; it's just a genetic dissatisfaction with everything.
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.
Why not? Life is short life is dull life is full of pain - and this is a chance for something special.
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
Enthusiasm is a good engine but it needs intelligence for a driver.
Your still searching for me in every woman. You'll always seek to duplicate what we had. You know it.
Why are our days numbered and not say lettered?
Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.
People are always talking about the dumbing down of the country.
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
I hope you're getting this down.
I don't know what I want but I know what I don't want
I don't know enough to be incompetent.
Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.
My Lord my Lord! What hath Thou done lately?
I do believe that reality is dreadful and that you are forced to choose it in the end or go crazy but that it kills you.
The artist can't give you an answer that's satisfying to the dreadful reality of your existence. So the best you can do is maybe entertain people and refresh them for an hour-and-a-half.
We knew the front door was always left open but we broke in just to keep in practice. Doxy turned all the Washburn family photos to the wall so there wouldn't be any witnesses.
When I was young I wanted to be a dramatic writer a writer of tragedy. Nothing would've pleased me more than if I could have written like Eugene O'Neil or Tennessee Williams.
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.
I'd always wanted to be a dramatic. Comedy comes more naturally to me. I can do it with more facility. So I feel more comfortable with it.
No I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.
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.
You'll find as you go through life that great depth and smoldering sensuality don't always win.
Life is full of misery loneliness and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.
A deranged person is supposed to have the strength of ten men. I have the strength of one small boy... with polio.
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...
Some people want to achieve immortality through their works or their descendants. I prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
Reality may not be the best of all possible worlds but it's still the only place where you can get a decent steak.
Marriage is the death of hope.
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
On the plus side death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .
I'm very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather on his deathbed sold me this watch.
Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle.
I read in self-defense.
My ex-wife was a philosophy major at NYU. Yeah she and I used to have deep philosophical discussions where she would prove that I didn't exist.
I've always had an easy time directing actors because I always hire ones that are great before I get my hands on them.
Sex is like having dinner: sometimes you joke about the dishes sometimes you take the meal seriously.
Of all human weakness obsession is the most dangerous. And the silliest.
Life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty.
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
My films are a form of psychoanalysis except that it is I who am paid which changes everything.
Paris is a very exciting city. I learned about Paris the same way that Americans do: from the movies.
If God exists I hope he has a good excuse.
Of all the wonders of nature a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing 'Embraceable You' in spats.
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.
The food in this place is really terrible. Yes and such small portions. That's essentially how I feel about life.
I loathed every day and regret every moment I spent in a school.
One man starving puts a crimp in my evening.
I can't enjoy anything unless everybody is. If one guy is starving someplace that puts a crimp in my evening.
In the event of war I'm a hostage.
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?
I believe in sex and death- two experiences that come once in a lifetime.
How am I immature? Intellectually emotionally and sexually. Yeah but in what other ways?
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.
You use sex to express every emotion except love.
Eternity is really long especially near the end.
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough. As you climb the ladder of success be sure it's leaning against the right building. Eighty percent of success is showing up.
My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
I don't know what I'm doing but my incompetence has never stopped my enthusiasm.
There are three rings involved with marriage. The engagement ring the wedding ring and the suffering.
If the [actors] are working and I have a dinner engagement I don't do 20 takes. I do five takes and go home. I want to go to dinner.
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy myself but I didn't.
Please forgive me. My pedicurist had a stroke. She fell forward onto the orange stick and plunged it into my toe. It required bandaging.
There's no way to prove that there is no God. You just have to take it on faith.
My parents stayed together for forty years. But that was out of spite.
The food here is terrible and the portions are too small.
The last time I was inside a woman was when I went to the Statue of Liberty.
Sex on Twitter can't hurt you - unless you fall off.
Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
Life is hard for insects. And don't think mice are having any fun either.
I see the glass half full...but of poison.
I don't have to 'freedom-kiss' my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.
Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.
Death doesn't really worry me that much I'm not frightened about it... I just don't want to be there when it happens.
I can't minimize the terror factor. As you get older you get more and more frightened because the terrible indignities of old age become closer to you.
I don't fear death. - I just don't want to be around when it happens.
Some guy hit my fender and I told him 'Be fruitful and multiply ' but not in those words.
A general philosophy of the female characters in my films is they all want something to believe in and not having anything.
A man that has never lied to a woman has no respect for her feelings.
I'm in show business. I'm not like a poor factory worker who'd been laid off.
All literature is a footnote to Faust. I have no idea what I mean by that.
Manute Bol is so skinny they save money on road trips. They just fax him from city to city.
There are two important things in the world the first is sex. The other isn't all that important.
How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world given my waist and shirt size?
The roe is reputed to sleep for a thousand years and then suddenly rise in flames particularly if it was smoking when it dozed off.
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.
Figures tell us there are already more people on earth than we need to move even the heaviest piano.
It figures you've got to hate yourself if you've got any integrity at all.
Not only is there no God but try finding a plumber on Sunday.
If you're not failing you're not trying anything.
If you aren't failing you aren't trying.
If you aren't failing every now and then you're probably playing it too safe.
If my films make one more person miserable I'll feel I have done my job.
I like the rain. It washes memories off the sidewalk of life.
People think I'm an artist because my films lose money.
If you don't fail now and again it's a sign you're playing it safe.
Money is better than poverty if only for financial reasons.
I consider myself a completely lucky filmmaker. I've had nothing but good luck. Everything I've needed has come my way.
Have you ever taken a serious political stand on anything? Yeah. Sure. For twenty-four hours once I refused to eat grapes.
I ran into Isosceles. He had a great idea for a new triangle!
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
If I had my life to live over I wish I could be a great pianist or something.
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.
The good sleep better but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
Why ruin a good story with the truth?