There’s an army story in me, and I think there’s a WWII Brooks film somewhere.
Why should I waste my good time making a straight dramatic film? The people who can’t make you laugh can do that.
One day, God said ‘Let there be prey.’ And he created pigeons, rabbits, lambs and Gene Wilder.
My movies were not reaping the kind of emotional rewards that I wanted. I wanted them to be appreciated and they weren’t. I didn’t want the reviews to say, “Mel Brooks has made another movie,” and you get the title somewhere in the second paragraph.
There’s not enough bad taste! I LOVE bad taste! I live for bad taste! I am the spokesman for bad taste!
Creative people should always be striving, they should always be hungry, they should be looking for the next place to go.
I’ve always loved songwriting, and I vowed to be a songwriter like Cole Porter when I was only 9 years old.
We want to get people laughing; we don’t want to offend anybody.
If you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy and colorful and lively.
Ill just say whats in my heart: Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.
Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin...
The only weapon I’ve got is comedy.
The egg cream is psychologically the opposite of circumcision – it pleasurably reaffirms your Jewishness.
When you get big special effects pictures, sci-fi and things, there’s little or no comedy. Or it’s a domestic comedy and there’s not one special effect. But very rarely do these things fuse and come out right.
We mock the things we are to be.
Organizations like the CIA and the FBI are still kind of supermen, kind of SS troops: We’re blond and the best and everyone else should be incinerated. They don’t know right from wrong. That’s what makes a satire of these government bureaus really funny.
That’s it baby, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.
My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
My job is to go out and entertain the most people possible. The job is to make people laugh. I don’t have a mission. I don’t have a torch to burn.