Woody Allen
American film director, writer, musician, actor and comedian.
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."
Harry: The most beautiful words in the English language aren't "I love you" but "it's benign."
I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, that’s why they don’t accomplish a thing, they don’t do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.
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.
I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic.
I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.
With the possible exception of What's Up, Tiger Lily (1966), the schlocky Japanese spy movie to which he attached his own, sidesplitting English soundtrack, no Woody Allen movie has ever been more or less serious than another of his works. He's always been serious. It's the audiences who have been frivolous.
In Zelig he reassures us that he can still be funny and moving without making the sort of insistent filmic references in which he delights but which can be infuriating to others. Zelig is a nearly perfect — and perfectly original — Woody Allen comedy.
To a man standing on the shore, time passes quicker than to a man on a boat — especially if the man on the boat is with his wife.
Harry: All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.
As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness.
Cookie: What are you sad about?
Harry: I'm spiritually bankrupt. I'm empty.
Cookie: What do you mean?
Harry: I'm frightened. I got no soul, you know what I mean? Let me put it this way: when I was younger it was less scary waiting for Lefty than it is waiting for Godot.
Cookie: You lost me!
Harry: You know that the universe is coming apart? You know about that? You know what a black hole is?
Cookie: Yeah. That's how I make my living.
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…
Harry: 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.
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife — a depressing thought, particularly for those who have 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 just as easily lying down.
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.
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.