Quotes from Mel Brooks

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.

The only thing we don't have a god for is premature ejaculation... but I hear that it's coming quickly.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.

Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you've got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy, colorful and lively.

I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.

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.

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.

They make us live in the crap, and now they're taking the crap away? No!

It's good to be the king.

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.

We mock the things we are to be.

Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way to deal with the world is to laugh - because if you don't laugh you're going to cry and never stop crying - that's probably what's responsible for the Jews having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep, learned more than anyone else how to laugh.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die.

Could be worse ... could be raining." - Igor

Comedy is a very powerful component of life. It has the most to say about the human condition because if you laugh you can get by. You can struggle when things are bad if you have a sense of humor. Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long goodbye. It's a defense against unhappiness and depression.

But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality.

Comedy is protest. It's "I beg to differ," if you're fancy, or if you're Jewish, "Hey, listen to this!

We laughed hard at real stories of tragedy. It had to be real and it had to be funny. Somebody getting hurt was wonderful. Later, as the 2000 Year Old Man with Carl Reiner I explained the difference between comedy and tragedy: If I cut my finger, that's tragedy. Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.

Even though it seems foolish and silly and crazy, comedy has the most to say about the human condition. Because if you can laugh, you can get by. You can survive when things are bad if you have a sense of humor.