Quotes from Woody Allen

With films, I just scribble a couple of notes for a scene. You don't have to do any writing at all, you just have your notes for the scene, which are written with the actors and the camera in mind. The actual script is a necessity for casting and budgeting, but the end product often doesn't bear much resemblance to the script--at least in my case.

Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing.

There is always the possibility that people will change. Real change is more rare. You are who you are at a certain age in life you are pretty much a variation of that your whole life. It's conceivable that you will change but it's not likely.

My relationship with death remains the same -- I'm strongly against it.

The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.

I've never had a block. I'm talking within the limits of my abilities. But in my own small way, I've had an embarrassment of riches. I'll have five ideas and I'm dying to do them all. It takes weeks or months where I agonize and obsess over which to do next. I wish sometimes someone would choose for me. If someone said, Do idea number three next, that would be fine. But I have never had any sense of running dry.

It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.

I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things -- because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself.

Some guy hit my car fender the other day, and I said unto him, "Be fruitful and multiply." But not in those words.

What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn't for certain people.

I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.

History is the same thing over and over again.

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.

Hey listen -- I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away.

I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in braille. I used to rub the dirty parts.

How could I not have known that there are little things the size of "Planck length" in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theater how hard it would be to find.

Science is an intellectual dead end, you know? It's a lot of little guys in tweed suits cutting up frogs on foundation grants.

Sex without love is an empty experience ... but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.

No, no, I'm a lowbrow. I read [Dostoevsky] more out of obligation than enjoyment. For enjoyment, for me, it's a beer and the football game.

See, I will always have this penchant for what I call kamikaze women. I call them kamikazes because they, you know they crash their plane, they're self-destructive. But they crash into you, and you die along with them.

Everything in life turns out to be a distraction from the real thing you want to do. There are a million distractions and when I was a kid I was very disciplined. I knew that the other kids weren't. I was the one able to do the thing, not because I had more talent, maybe less, but because they simply weren't applying themselves.

The film studios learned to our dismay but to their pleasure that if they spent $200 million making a film they could make half a billion on it. So they were not interested anymore in quality films.... They can't afford to be that risky at those prices. Consequently you're getting a lot of remakes, sequels, dopey comedies full of toilet jokes.

I know what I think but I don't know how to put it into words. Maybe I could get a little bit drunk and dance it for you.

I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.