Latest Harold Ramis Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I want to explore marriage without the usual Hallmark Card platitudes. Life is difficult, and I like movies that acknowledge that.

  Harold Ramis

  Usual, Cards, Want

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I'm thinking of doing a marital comedy for one of the studios, but I want it to be so painful that it'll have a profound effect on married couples who see it together.

  Harold Ramis

  Couple, Thinking, Profound

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I did a comedy with Al Franken about his character Stuart Smalley, which was really about alcoholism and addiction and codependency. It had some painful stuff in it. When we showed it to focus groups, some of them actually said, "If I want to see a dysfunctional family, I'll stay home."

  Harold Ramis

  Home, Character, Addiction

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I've tried to stay away from mild satire. I want an audience to feel something more powerful for their ten bucks. If they're going to spend two hours with me, and trust me to lead them around, I'd like to take them someplace special.

  Harold Ramis

  Powerful, Two, Special

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I'd rather do comedies that strike at some bigger ideas.

  Harold Ramis

  Ideas, Comedy, Bigger

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I look for the meaning in what's funny, and I look for what's funny about things that are meaningful to me.

  Harold Ramis

  Meaningful, Looks

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• For me, most comedy scripts fail in the mechanical playing-out of the setup. They'll pay lip service to a moral lesson or a psychological progression.

  Harold Ramis

  Lessons, Pay, Scripts

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• A friend of mine is trying to do a documentary where he brings Jewish and Arab comedians to occupied territories in Israel. He wants to do shows as a way of finding some comedic common denominator. When he proposed the idea to one of the officials at the Jenin refuge camp, the guy just stared at him and said, "This is not a joke to us. We don't think that laughing is the answer."

  Harold Ramis

  Thinking, Israel, Ideas

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Everyone has experienced laughing at a funeral, and not even inappropriately. It could be a response to a moment of absurdity or some fond memory. We're human beings so we understand that laughter and crying aren't always disparate emotions.

  Harold Ramis

  Laughter, Memories, Laughing

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn't really accomplish anything.

  Harold Ramis

  Leader, Accomplish, Contempt

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I realized that my righteous indignation was a form of entertainment for me. I loved getting pissed off at injustice. I didn't do anything about it, I just liked the feeling of being pissed off.

  Harold Ramis

  Feelings, Pissed Off, Entertainment

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Some people have a fear of rejecting all the security that comes with family, church and state. They become fundamentalists.

  Harold Ramis

  People, Church, States

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Once you're alienated, you're on your own. That takes you to the world of the existential, where things just kind of float.

  Harold Ramis

  World, Kind, Existential

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• The child says, "Well geesh, the institutions that I'm supposed to respect - the church and the government - they're telling me things that don't appear to be true. Either I'm crazy or they're crazy." That creates the Absurd Child. The Absurd Child is one who says, "Well, I think they're crazy." So you live in this state of alienation from your culture and your society and your family because you see this rampant bullshit around you.

  Harold Ramis

  Children, Crazy, Thinking

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Parents tell us things to protect us, or they educate us from their own misinformation or misconceptions.

  Harold Ramis

  Parent, Protect, Misinformation

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• We tell our kids that policemen are good and God protects us and our country is noble, and at a certain point - and for some it comes quite early, five or six years old - we start to realize that it's all a facade.

  Harold Ramis

  Country, Kids, Years

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• You can perceive life as tragic, or you can laugh at the tragedy of it and that turns it into comedy. It doesn't change the circumstances.

  Harold Ramis

  Laughing, Tragedy, Comedy

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Whatever bliss we think we're going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There's an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling.

  Harold Ramis

  Thinking, Feelings, Fleeting

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• The comic impulse is sometimes a reaction to sadness. You feel like you can make one choice or the other.

  Harold Ramis

  Sadness, Choices, Sometimes

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I try to measure the amount of truth in a work rather than just looking at the generic distinction between comedy and drama.

  Harold Ramis

  Drama, Trying, Comedy

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.

  Harold Ramis

  People, Anxiety, Spectrum

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• You can't love somebody into a state of mental health.

  Harold Ramis

  Mental Health, States

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I've always thought that comedy was just another dramatic expression.

  Harold Ramis

  Expression, Comedy, Dramatic

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I have tons of rescuing fantasies based on the movies I saw when I was growing up. I wanted to be Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers and the Scarlet Pimpernel.

  Harold Ramis

  Growing Up, Robins, Three

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com

• I'm sure that the liability for doing a tracheotomy would be tremendous. You make one mistake, and it's over. Most doctors won't even do it.

  Harold Ramis

  Mistake, Doctors, Would Be

  Source: www.ericspitznagel.com