Mel Brooks Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Now thyself is more important than “Know thyself.

  Mel Brooks

  Important, Know Thyself, Knows

  14 Copy quote

• I was adored [as a kid]. I was always in the air, hurled up and kissed and thrown in the air again. Until I was six, my feet didn't touch the ground. "Look at those eyes! That nose! Those lips! That tooth! Get that child away from me, quick! I'll eat him!" Giving that up was very difficult later on in life.

  Mel Brooks

  Children, Kids, Eye

  12 Copy quote

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

  Mel Brooks

  Mustache, Needs, Cinema

  27 Copy quote

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

  Mel Brooks

  Disappointment, Essence, Luck

  9 Copy quote

• Everything starts with writing.

  Mel Brooks

  Writing

  "Mel Brooks on the Secret to Fart Sounds, Why Comedy’s Gotten Lazy and His New PBS Doc ‘Mel Brooks: Make a Noise’". Interview with Matt Singer, www.indiewire.com. May 16, 2013.

  11 Copy quote

• An egg cream can do anything. An egg cream to a Brooklyn Jew is like water to an Arab. A Jew will kill for an egg cream. It's the Jewish malmsey.

  Mel Brooks

  Eggs, Water, Brooklyn

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belt, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

• The audience. They see the name Mel Brooks, they want something really funny. They don't want to be moved; they don't want to be taught any lessons. [...] I get more letters for Twelve Chairs and Life Stinks than I get from any other movies, because people actually agree with the philosophy, or were moved, or they love the movie.

  Mel Brooks

  Philosophy, Names, Want Something

  "Mel Brooks on how to play Hitler, and how he almost died making Spaceballs". Interview with Steve Heisler, www.avclub.com. December 13, 2012.

  5 Copy quote

• Basically, I'm a writer. I'm the proprietor of the vision. I alone know what I eventually want to happen on the screen. So if you have a valuable idea, the only way to protect it is to direct it.

  Mel Brooks

  Ideas, Vision, Want

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belth, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

  8 Copy quote

• When I'm writing a script, I don't worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters - what they need, what they want, what they should do. That's what gets the story going. You can't just have action, you've got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.

  Mel Brooks

  Writing, Character, People

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belth, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

  11 Copy quote

• Comedy is lively, comedy is joy, and that's what keeps us [people] going, we've got to look forward to little, little happiness's. Little, little joys, and comedy is very, very important, it's a vital. We underestimate its value, but we should see more comedies. Comedy is life giving, it's invigorating. I really believe it.

  Mel Brooks

  Believe, People, Giving

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Character, Names

  "Why Mel Brooks can save the human race" by Alastair Campbell, www.theguardian.com. November 2, 2006.

  11 Copy quote

• The more serious the situation, the funnier the comedy can be. The greatest comedy plays against the greatest tragedy. Comedy is a red rubber ball and if you throw it against a soft, funny wall, it will not come back. But if you throw it against the hard wall of ultimate reality, it will bounce back and be very lively. Very, very few people understand this.

  Mel Brooks

  Wall, Reality, Play

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belth, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

  7 Copy quote

• My liveliness is based on an incredible fear of death. In order to keep death at bay, I do a lot of "Yah! Yah! Yah!" And death says, "All right. He's too noisy and busy. I'll wait for someone who's sitting quietly, half asleep."

  Mel Brooks

  Order, Waiting, Sitting

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belth, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

  5 Copy quote

• I usually start with the words. The rhythm of the words gives me the rhythm of the song, and then I look for the musical highlights in it to carry it.

  Mel Brooks

  Song, Giving, Musical

  Q&A: Mel Brooks, www.billboard.com. December 8, 2005.

  14 Copy quote

• My God, I'd love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, 'Well done, you god-damn genius.'

  Mel Brooks

  Hands, Genius, Done

  5 Copy quote

• The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.

  Mel Brooks

  Appreciation, Moving, Fall

  "Mel Brooks on how to play Hitler, and how he almost died making Spaceballs". Interview with Steve Heisler, www.avclub.com. December 13, 2012.

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Doe, Comedy

  "Springtime of Brooks' autumn years" by John Ezard, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2004.

  18 Copy quote

• I love [Nikolai] Gogol's great eye for idiot behavior. Gogol said that life is so tragic, so stupendously sad that we'd better laugh a lot and enjoy ourselves. You either get a sense of humor going or you go under.

  Mel Brooks

  Eye, Laughing, Sense Of Humor

  10 Copy quote

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

  Mel Brooks

  Jobs, People

  "Q & A with Get Smart's Mel Brooks". Interview with Patrick Kevin Day, www.news.com.au. March 18, 2009.

  5 Copy quote

• There's no such thing as too far. If it works it's funny, if it doesn't work it's too far, it's stupid. Really there's no such thing as "too far." You're joining the politically correct when you use words like "too far." You don't want to join the army of politically correct.

  Mel Brooks

  Stupid, Army, Joining

  "Mel Brooks Remembers the Funniest Movie He Ever Made". Interview with Jason Guerrasio, www.esquire.com. May 21, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm always stunned when I find out people like Roosevelt and Tolstoy weren't Jewish. How could I love them so much?

  Mel Brooks

  People, Stunned

  11 Copy quote

• THE 2,000-YEAR-OLD MAN'S SECRETS OF LONGEVITY 1. Don't run for a bus - there'll always be another. 2. Never, ever touch fried food. 3. Stay out of a Ferrari or any other small Italian car. 4. Eat fruit - a nectarine - even a rotten plum is good.

  Mel Brooks

  Running, Italian, Men

  10 Copy quote

• Why should I waste my good time making a straight dramatic film? The people who can't make you laugh can do that.

  Mel Brooks

  People, Laughing, Waste

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Mel Brooks

  Crazy, Would Be, Looks

  6 Copy quote

• I had low blood sugar, a chemical imbalance, plus the normal nervous breakdown everyone goes through from adolescence to adulthood.

  Mel Brooks

  Blood, Sugar, Imbalance

  10 Copy quote

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