Mel Brooks Quotes
"We rest our case on the production numbers."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Numbers, Production, Rest)
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Comedy, Open, Tragedy)
"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."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Talent, People, Ability, Being, Living, Names, Skin, Writer)
"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."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Men, Living, Trying)
"Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: People, Chance, Comedy, Rhetoric)
"Look, I 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've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Life, Death, Want, Will)
"Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Life, Comedy)
"If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Living, Quiet)
"You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself."
- Mel Brooks
"If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Country, Wives)
"If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: God)
"I only direct in self-defense."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Self)
"I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Business, Being)
"Humor is just another defense against the universe."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Humor, Defense, Universe)
"Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Life, Love, Fear)
"Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Truth, Saying, Taste)
"As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Mistakes, World)
"Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Writers)
"He who hesitates is poor."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Poor)
"If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none."
- Mel Brooks
(Related: Death, Chance)