Quotes from Preston Sturges

I never write down to my audiences. I respect honest sentiment and honest pratfalls.

To the memory of those who made us laugh: the motley mountebanks, the clowns, the buffoons, in all times and in all nations, whose efforts have lightened our burden a little, this picture is affectionately dedicated.

Oh, do I know them? I positively swill in their ale.

There's a lot to be said for making people laugh… did you know that's all some people have? It isn't much… but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.

You're certainly a funny girl for anybody to meet who's just been up the Amazon for a year.

When the last dime is gone, I'll sit on the curb outside with a pencil and a ten cent notebook and start the whole thing over again.

The most incredible thing about my career is that I had one.

That's one of the tragedies of this life - that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous.

You know, Maude . . . somebody meeting you for the first time -- not knowing you were cracked -- might get the wrong impression of you.

THE POLITICIAN If it wasn't for graft, you'd get a very low type of people in politics. Men without ambition. Jellyfish! CATHERINE Especially since you can't rob the people anyway. THE POLITICIAN Sure...How was that? CATHERINE What you rob, you spend. And what you spend goes back to the people. So where's the robbery? I read that in one of my father's books. THE POLITICIAN That book should be in every home!

Film is the greatest educational medium the world has ever known.

This is the story of two men who met in a banana republic. One of them never did anything dishonest in his life except for one crazy minute. The other never did anything honest in his life except for one crazy minute.

GERRY I would step on your face! HACKENSACKER That's quite all right, I rather enjoyed it. GERRY Twice! HACKENSACKER You made quite an impression.

JEAN Boy, would I like to see you give some old harpie the three in one! COLONEL Don't be vulgar, Jane. Let us be crooked, but never common.

JEAN I need him like the axe needs the turkey. HARRINGTON Don't be vulgar, Jean. Let us be crooked, but never common.

I did not think that a good movie was the equivalent of a good stage play, any more than I thought an automobile ride was as exhilarating as a drive behind a spirited horse, nor a trip by steam as soul-satisfying as a voyage by sail.

I go through life accumulating possessions... I've always done it... and then, every once in a while, a sort of tidal wave comes along and washes them all away.

Though I believe in God, I don't believe in religion for everybody. Some people who are a little weak and don't want to shoulder any responsibility need Catholicism. For people at the other extreme, there is Christian Science... I think a powerful conscience is worth all the religions put together.

According to my mother, positively no one, least of all herself, had even the faintest suspicion that she was heavy with child at the time of my birth.

In 'Remember the Night,' love reformed her and corrupted him, which gave us the finely balanced moral that one man's meat is another man's poison.

It is probably a very good thing for a boy to learn to live with enmity, as opposed to an atmosphere of love and affection, as it hardens him and gives him a taste of what he is going to run into later in life.

When the last dime is gone, I'll sit on the curb outside with a pencil and a ten cent notebook and start the whole thing over again.

For a southern belle, my grandmother was remarkably modern. She threw my grandfather out, for one thing - some kind of argument about bourbon whiskey - shortly after the birth of their third child, and then went back to school to get herself a teaching certificate.

Now I've laid me down to die I pray my neighbors not to pry Too deeply into sins that I Not only cannot here deny But much enjoyed as life flew by.