Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said. |
Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you. |
If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country. |
If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively. |
These men both publicly and privately have done so much for me. Without Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick I would be living in a little motel just around the corner here, trying to make ends meet. |
Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers. |
We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody. |
We rest our case on the production numbers. |
Humor is just another defense against the universe. |
Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance. |
Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him. |
You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself. |
I only direct in self-defense. |
As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes. |
He who hesitates is poor. |
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. |
If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none. |
Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive. |
I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front. |
If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets. |