Nothing is free. You got to pay to be in society. First you start with homework.
My God, I’d love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, ‘Well done, you god-damn genius.’
Look, I had to take chances or it wasn’t fun being funny.
You got to be brave. If you feel something, you’ve really got to risk it.
I’m married to a beautiful and talented woman who can lift your spirits just by looking at you.
Sir, I have seen your film and it is vulgar! Madame, my film rises below vulgarity.
Not only should we laugh about Hitler. We must laugh about him. Especially in Berlin.
The final test of fame is to have a crazy person imagine he is you.
Coleman Jacoby and Arnie Rosen won an Emmy and Mel Brooks didn’t! Niezsche was right! There is no God! There is no God!
All right, I am often brash, rude and brutally direct. Someday I’m going to die and I don’t have time to toe-dance around the periphery of hatred.
I don’t think in terms of results at all. I think: what next insanity can I shock the world with?
In every spoof I make real love to the things I am spoofing.
Making a movie is like making an ocean voyage, and the script is your ship.
Directing is a terrible, anxious process. It’s all collaboration, and if you have a dream, it’s diluted very quickly by the slightest ineptness in any of your collaborators. They’re supposed to help you, but too often they help you into your grave.
I wanted to entertain so badly that I kept at it until I was good. I just browbeat my way into show business.
You want me to admit I’m a four-foot, six-inch freckle-faced person of Jewish extraction? I admit it. All but the extraction. But being short never bothered me for three seconds. The rest of the time I wanted to commit suicide.
My brothers went to work at 12 and put themselves through school and brought the family out of ruin into food and clothing.
My mother is very short – four-eleven. She could walk under tables and never hit her head.
I was born on the kitchen table. We were so poor my mother couldn’t afford to have me; the lady next door gave birth to me.
My liveliness is based on an incredible fear of death. In order to keep death at bay, I do a lot of “Yah! Yah! Yah!” And death says, “All right. He’s too noisy and busy. I’ll wait for someone who’s sitting quietly, half asleep.”