American actor, director & screenwriter (1935- )
There is always the possibility that people will change. Real change is more rare. You are who you are at a certain age in life you are pretty much a variation of that your whole life. It's conceivable that you will change but it's not likely.
WOODY ALLEN
interview, Collider, Aug. 15, 2008
With films, I just scribble a couple of notes for a scene. You don't have to do any writing at all, you just have your notes for the scene, which are written with the actors and the camera in mind. The actual script is a necessity for casting and budgeting, but the end product often doesn't bear much resemblance to the script--at least in my case.
WOODY ALLEN
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1995
My relationship with death remains the same -- I'm strongly against it.
WOODY ALLEN
press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, 2011
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.
WOODY ALLEN
Love and Death
Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing.
WOODY ALLEN
Deconstructing Harry
To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
WOODY ALLEN
Stardust Memories
Photons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic.
WOODY ALLEN
attributed, The Quantum Zoo: A Tourist's Guide to the Neverending Universe
It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.
WOODY ALLEN
The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose
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.
WOODY ALLEN
"Woody Allen Speaks Out", The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2014
You start to think, when you're younger, how important everything is and how things have to go right--your job, your career, your life, your choices, and all of that. Then, after a while, you start to realise that -- I'm talking the big picture here -- eventually you die, and eventually the sun burns out and the earth is gone, and eventually all the stars and all the planets in the entire universe go, disappear, and nothing is left at all. Nothing -- Shakespeare and Beethoven and Michelangelo gone. And you think to yourself that there's a lot of noise and sound and fury -- and where's it going? It's not going any place.... Now, you can't actually live your life like that, because if you do you just sit there and -- why do anything? Why get up in the morning and do anything? So I think it's the job of the artist to try and figure out why, given this terrible fact, you want to go on living.
WOODY ALLEN
interveiw, France 24, 2010
Some guy hit my car fender the other day, and I said unto him, "Be fruitful and multiply." But not in those words.
WOODY ALLEN
The Woody Allen Companion
I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.
WOODY ALLEN
Love and Death
What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn't for certain people.
WOODY ALLEN
Radio Days
I've never had a block. I'm talking within the limits of my abilities. But in my own small way, I've had an embarrassment of riches. I'll have five ideas and I'm dying to do them all. It takes weeks or months where I agonize and obsess over which to do next. I wish sometimes someone would choose for me. If someone said, Do idea number three next, that would be fine. But I have never had any sense of running dry.
WOODY ALLEN
interview, The Paris Review, fall 1995
I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things -- because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself.
WOODY ALLEN
interview, Der Spiegel, June 20, 2005
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.
WOODY ALLEN
Side Effects
I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.
WOODY ALLEN
attributed, Punchlines: The Case for Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Humor
There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open.
WOODY ALLEN
The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose
It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
WOODY ALLEN
"The UFO Menace", Side Effects
What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously -- but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself.
WOODY ALLEN
Esquire, Sep. 2013