Woody Allen
film director, comedian, film actor, screenwriter, film producer, clarinetist, playwright, singer, character actor, journalist, writer, composer, director, actor, producer, film score composer, film screenwriter
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All Quotes by Woody Allen
“The Devil: You want me to turn the air-conditioning on?The Devil: Sure, it fucks up the ozone layer!”
“Harry: All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.”
“A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight.”
“I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic.”
“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."”
“Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.”
“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 was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”
“I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.”
“I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.”
“I'm not a drinker — my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba.”
“When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.”
“How could I not have known that there are little things the size of "Planck length" in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theater how hard it would be to find.”
“Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday.”
“And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?”
“I don't believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.”
“With that, he scribbled in an additional ninety thousand dollars on the estimate, which had waxed to the girth of the Talmud while rivaling it in possible interpretations.”
“I have also reviewed my own financial obligations, which have puffed up recently like a hammered thumb.”
“She quarreled with the nanny and accused her of brushing Misha's teeth sideways rather than up and down.”
“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”
“As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness.”
“I was supremely confident my flair for atmosphere and characterization would sparkle alongside the numbing mulch ground out by studio hacks. Certainly the space atop my mantel might be better festooned by a gold statuette than by the plastic dipping bird that now bobbed there ad infinitum.”
“Bidnick gorges himself on Viagra, but the dosage makes him hallucinate and causes him to imagine he is Pliny the Elder.”
“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.”
“If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.”
“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.”
“Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.”
“The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.”
“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”
“I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.”
“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”
“I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
“Marriage is the death of hope.”
“All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.”
“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.”
“I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
“The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.”
“Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”
“Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.”
“It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
“I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”
“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.”
“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”
“Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday.”
“I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.”
“In my house I'm the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.”
“I'm very proud of my gold pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.”
“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.”
“I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”
“When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.”
“Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.”
“I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.”
“I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.”
“Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.”
“If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.”
“In Beverly Hills... they don't throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.”
“I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.”
“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”
“Harvard makes mistakes too, you know. Kissinger taught there.”
“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.”
“It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.”
“I've never been an intellectual but I have this look.”
“If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.”
“Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.”
“Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.”
“I ran into Isosceles. He had a great idea for a new triangle!”
“It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.”
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”
“What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?”
“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”
“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.”
“To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.”
“He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian.”
“The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.”
“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”
“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”
“Marriage is the death of hope.”
“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”
“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.”
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
“The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.”
“I am two with nature.”
“Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.”
“What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”
“I don't believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.”
“My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a quaker.”
“I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.”
“His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.”
“You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.”
“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.”
“I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.”
“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
“I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.”
“Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.”
“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”
“Man consists of two parts, his mind and his body, only the body has more fun.”
“Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.”
“Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!”
“I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.”
“I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia”
“Who bothers to cook TV dinners? I suck them frozen.”
“I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.”
“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
“On bisexuality: It immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.”
“When we played softball, I'd steal second base, feel guilty and go back.”
“Love is the answer. But while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.”
“I don't have to 'freedom-kiss' my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.”
“There have been times when I've thought of suicide but with my luck it'd probably be a temporary solution.”
“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.”
“The difference between sex and death is, with death you can do it alone and nobody's going to make fun of you.”
“In California, they don't throw their garbage away - they make it into TV shows.”
“To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.”
“Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”
“Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.”
“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”
“It figures you’ve got to hate yourself if you’ve got any integrity at all.”
“On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .”
“Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.”
“Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.”
“I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' but not in those words.”
“What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn't for certain people.”
“I'm such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.”
“[The universe is] haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent.”
“I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.”
“Change is death.”
“Some guy hit my car fender the other day, and I said unto him, "Be fruitful and multiply." But not in those words.”
“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.”
“Marriage is the death of hope.”
“How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?”
“We're worth a lot of dough. Whatever you see is antiques. This thing here. This is from — I don't remember exactly. I think it's the Renaissance or the Magna Carta or something. But that's where it's from.”
“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.”
“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.”
“My relationship with death remains the same - I'm strongly against it,All I can do is wait for it,”
“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…”
“Death is like a colonoscopy, the problem is that life is like the prep day.”
“I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.”
“Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.”
“If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.”
“It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.”
“Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it.”
“Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.”
“Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.”
“I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.”
“They called me mad... But it was I - yes I - who discovered the link between excessive masturbation and entry into politics!”
“When it comes to sex there are certain things that should always be left unknown, and with my luck, they probably will be.”
“My brain: it's my second favorite organ.”
“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.”
“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”
“I'm not really the heroic type. I was beat up by Quakers.”
“Sex and death. Two things that come but once in my lifetime, but at least after death you're not nauseous.”
“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, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness — I hope you're getting this down.”
“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.”
“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 you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.”
“Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.”
“I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.”
“In addition to our summer and winter estate, he owned a valuable piece of land. True, it was a small piece, but he carried it with him wherever he went.”
“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”
“And so I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Actually, make that "I run through the valley of the shadow of death" - in order to get OUT of the valley of the shadow of death more quickly, you see.”
“We have to take our possessions and flee. I'm very good at that. I was the men's freestyle fleeing champion two years in a row.”
“I don't believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.”
“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.”
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
“Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.”
“His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.”
“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.”
“What a wonderful thing, to be conscious! I wonder what the people in New Jersey do.”
“Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.”
“What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”
“If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.”
“It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
“The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.”
“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?”
“Rabbi Raditz of Poland was a very short rabbi with a long beard, who was said to have inspired many pogroms with his sense of humor. One of his disciples asked, "Who did God like better, Moses or Abraham?"”
“I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysentery.”
“I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”
“I can't get with any religion that advertises in Popular Mechanics.”
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
“I had dated a woman briefly in the Eisenhower administration, and it was ironic to me, because I was trying to do to her what Eisenhower had been doing to the country for the last 8 years.”
“It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.”
“Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates. Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around a Swedish airline stewardess and some handcuffs.”
“Death is a state of non-being. That which is not, does not exist. Therefore death does not exist. Only truth exists. Truth and beauty. Each is interchangeable, but are aspects of themselves. Er, what specifically did they say they had in mind for 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.”
“Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. Socrates: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers.”
“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.”
“Taste my tuna casserole — tell me if I put in too much hot fudge.”
“What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!”
“I bought her this handkerchief... and I didn't even know her size.”
“I can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know ? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.”
“[about his daughter] I'd rather she grew up here than grew up as an orphan, you know I can tolerate anybody's orphans but my own.”
“...years of insanity have made this guy crazy!”
“Harry: Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning.”
“Harry: You think the President of the United States wants to fuck every woman he meets?... Well, bad example.”
“I can't do anything to death, doctor's orders.”
“Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.”
“Harry: The most beautiful words in the English language aren't "I love you" but "it's benign."”
“To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.”
“Harry: Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing. Waitressing's gotta be the worst fucking job in the world.”
“Burt: Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened?Harry: Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is that records are made to be broken.”
“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.”
“Harry: Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”
“Harry: (On being called a self-hating Jew) Hey, I may hate myself, but not because I'm Jewish.”
“Doris: You have no values. With you it's all nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm, and orgasm.Harry: Hey, in France I could run for office with that slogan, and win!”