Quotes from Mel Brooks

In every spoof I make real love to the things I am spoofing.

I also try to surround myself with people I love - make a family out of the company. So I tend to use the same people over and over. There's a sort of Mel Brooks Repertory Company.

I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.

Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.

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.

Humour is just another defence against the universe.

As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.

You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself.

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

Usually when a lot of men get together, it's called a war.

These men both publicly and privately have done so much for me. Without Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick I would be living in a little motel just around the corner here, trying to make ends meet.

A lot of music is mathematics. It's balance.

I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.

When you come to Germany as a Jew you have an uneasy feeling, but I've always felt okay in Berlin.

Well, just being stupid and politically incorrect doesn't work. You can be politically incorrect if you're smart.

The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character.

We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody.

My brothers went to work at 12 and put themselves through school and brought the family out of ruin into food and clothing.

I was in the army, and to me it was like a newsreel.

Look, I had to take chances or it wasn't fun being funny.

If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.

My job is to go out and entertain the most people possible.

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.