WOODY ALLEN QUOTES II
American actor, director & screenwriter (1935- )
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
WOODY ALLEN
"Scrolls", Without Feathers
I don't think that men have been comfortable with feminist progress. They're used to growing up in a society where women have a role to play and so do the men. Some enlightened men have welcomed and encouraged and supported it. But I'm not so sure if you look deeply even into them that it hasn't been a little bit of an effort to accept women in roles that they're completely entitled to. If you asked most men in the privacy of their own home they might say: I liked it better when a woman got married and took care of the kids and I went out to work and the equation was clearly defined. Women should be free to have anything and everything they want in terms of all of those rights. It should be a given, not be a privilege. But it is undoing a more primitive situation.... I think if you look 100 years from now, the situation will be much more graceful.
WOODY ALLEN
The Guardian, Sep. 26, 2013
Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it.
WOODY ALLEN
The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose
Human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, but the body has all the fun.
WOODY ALLEN
Love and Death
Sam and I go way back to when he was a young coroner starting out and used to perform autopsies at weddings an sweet sixteens for cigarette money.
WOODY ALLEN
Mere Anarchy
I'm not a drinker -- my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba.
WOODY ALLEN
Standup Comic
The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God's mind -- a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you've just made a down payment on a house.
WOODY ALLEN
The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose
Men would make love with any number of women ... even total strangers, while females were selective. They were catering to the demands of one small egg. While males had millions of frantic sperms screaming: "Let us out, let us out!"
WOODY ALLEN
Husbands and Wives
When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares.
WOODY ALLEN
interview, Sep. 2007
This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.
WOODY ALLEN
press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, 2011
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But, then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness -- I hope you're getting this down.
WOODY ALLEN
Love and Death
Last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.
WOODY ALLEN
Crimes and Misdemeanors
I was supremely confident my flair for atmosphere and characterization would sparkle alongside the numbing mulch ground out by studio hacks. Certainly the space atop my mantel might be better festooned by a gold statuette than by the plastic dipping bird that now bobbed there ad infinitum.
WOODY ALLEN
Mere Anarchy
It's just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don't have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we're just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it's Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There'll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.
WOODY ALLEN
Esquire, Sep. 2013
Tradition is the illusion of permanence.
WOODY ALLEN
Deconstructing Harry
Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.
WOODY ALLEN
Husbands and Wives
Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.
WOODY ALLEN
My Philosophy
I did not molest Dylan. I loved her and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested in her own festering anger than her daughter's well-being. Being taught to hate your father and made to believe he molested you has already taken a psychological toll on this lovely young woman, and Soon-Yi and I are both hoping that one day she will understand who has really made her a victim and reconnect with us, as Moses has, in a loving, productive way.
WOODY ALLEN
"Woody Allen Speaks Out", The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2014
The key here, I think, is to not think of death as an end. But ... but ... think of it more as a very effective way of cutting down on your expenses.
WOODY ALLEN
Love and Death
Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
WOODY ALLEN
"Selections from the Allen Notebooks", Without Feathers