Critics can’t even make music by rubbing their back legs together.
I have been lucky that some critics joined the mob in loving something I’ve done, or in appreciating it. I’ve been lucky. But most of the critics don’t like what the people like. I think they have a very strange job, and they are meant to criticize.
Basically, I’m a writer. I’m the proprietor of the vision. I alone know what I eventually want to happen on the screen. So if you have a valuable idea, the only way to protect it is to direct it.
Everything starts with writing.
You cannot have fun with anything that you don’t love or admire or respect.
It’s good to be the king.
Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.
I always thought it was great to be able to make people feel better. It was a little like being God.
When I was a little boy, I thought when I grew up I would talk Yiddish. I thought little kids talked English, but when they became adults, they would talk Yiddish like the adults did. There would be no reason to talk English anymore, because we would have made it.
If you’re alive, make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death.
You want to be as smart as you can about being stupid.
An egg cream can do anything. An egg cream to a Brooklyn Jew is like water to an Arab. A Jew will kill for an egg cream. It’s the Jewish malmsey.
I don’t believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.
I love gentiles. In fact, on of my favorite activities is Protestant spotting.
When I was a little kid at home, I thought the whole world was Jewish. For years I thought Roosevelt was Jewish. I loved him. I thought of him as my father. I’m always stunned when I find out that people like Roosevelt and Tolstoy weren’t Jewish. How could I love them so much?
I was out in the combat engineers. We would throw up bridges in advance of the infantry but mainly we would just throw up.
Tragedy is what happens to me; comedy is what happens to you.
Good taste is the enemy of comedy.
Usually when a lot of men get together, it’s called a war.