Mel Brooks Quotes

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.

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.

Hope for the Best. Expect the worst. Life is a play. We're unrehearsed.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers. In that classic, Brooks’s larcenous and dopey heroes, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, set out to sell more than 100 percent of the ownership stakes in the Broadway show they are producing. Since they will be found out only if the show is a hit, everything about the show is premised on its being a flop. Accordingly, they create a show so outlandish that it actually succeeds, thus dooming our heroes.

We got to the moment when I wake up from being "mostly dead" and say: "I'll beat you both apart! I'll take you both together!", Fezzik cups my mouth with his hand, and answers his own question to Inigo as to how long it might be before Miracle Max's pill begins to take effect by stating: "I guess not very long." As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from Andre' one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now I suppose you wouldn't expect a man of Andre's proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted int eh campfire scene in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts. Except of course, this one wasn't in the script.

Hope for the best, expect the worst. Life is a play, we're unrehearsed.

Liebkind: Hitler. There was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats!

If I cut my finger, that’s tragedy. Comedy is if you walk into an open sewer and die.

The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers.

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.

I turn on my computer to search Craigslist for apartment listings. The wireless window pops up, and I realize with some regret that all I know about my neighbours is their wireless network names: Krypton, Space balls, Couscous, and Scarlet. From this I can tell little else than that they're fans of Superman, Mel Brooks, Middle Eastern cuisine, and the colour red. I look out my window, wondering whose house is whose and what private food and entertainment consumption occurs in each and how I will never get to know.

Failure is vital. It is an incredibly important quotient in the equation of a career. After you wipe away your tears, it’s not a bad experience and under the right circumstances it will make you better, both as a person and as an artist. I think it’s important to fail, especially between the ages of twenty and thirty. Success is like sugar. It’s too good. It’s too sweet. It’s too wonderful and it burns up very quickly. Failure is like corned beef hash. It takes a while to eat. It takes a while to digest. But it stays with you.

Comedy made me friends, big friends to protect me from bullies. I made them laugh, and you don’t hit the kid that makes you laugh.

Bialystock: Leo - he who hesitates is poor!

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

Carl: I want to talk about the impact of the Ten Commandments. Mel: There were more. But they weren’t important. Carl: Can you tell me one? Mel: Certainly, “thou shalt not squint.

Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long goodbye. It’s a defense against unhappiness and depression.

I think Peter Falk had one real eye and one glass eye, and having one eye was probably better for shooting pool than having two.

I always thought a rich lie is better than a poor truth:

All I can say is that in my case comedy was keeping the joy of a happy childhood going strong.

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb" - Dark Helmet

Bialystock: How dare you condemn me without knowing all the facts! Bloom: Mr Bialystock... Bialystock: Shut up! I'm having a rhetorical conversation.You see this? This once held a pearl as big as your eye. Look at me now. Look at me now! I'm wearing a cardboard belt.

Carl was an immediate and intuitive foil and partner, feeding off my energy and adding to it. I once took Scotch tape and attached my nose to my cheek, my lower lip to my chin, and an eyebrow to my forehead. I looked cruelly disfigured. I burst into the writers’ room, and Carl immediately nurtured the bit: Carl: How did it happen? Who did that to you? Mel: The Nazis! They did it to me. Threw me in a ditch and did it! Carl: You mean they beat you? Disfigured you? Mel: Oh no. They took Scotch tape and stuck it all over my face. Carl broke up and hit the floor, clutching his belly and laughing like crazy. For me that was a home run. Anytime I could make Carl laugh, I knew I had a winner.

I was at my best when I was backed into a corner. Like a cornered rat I had to somehow jump out of it. I would never surrender. Carl knew he would never get the same answer twice, and I loved to surprise him. Carl: Who is the favorite of all your girlfriends of all time? Mel: Shirley. Carl: What was so special about Shirley? Mel: Her friend Leila. Carl hit the floor.

As soon as he delivered that line, there issued forth from André one of the most monumental farts any of us had ever heard. Now, I suppose you wouldn’t expect a man of André’s proportions to pass gas quietly or unobtrusively, but this particular one was truly epic, a veritable symphony of gastric distress that roared for more than several seconds and shook the very foundations of the wood and plaster set we were now grabbing on to out of sheer fear. It was long enough and loud enough that every member of the crew had time to stop what they were doing and take notice. All I can say is that it was a wind that could have held up in comparison to the one Slim Pickens emitted in the campfire scene in Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles, widely acknowledged as the champion of all cinematic farts.

The writing of this book serves as a kind of confession. You, the readers, will be my confidants. I’m going to tell you all my secrets. Things I’ve never told anybody. Things I don’t want anybody to know! I don’t want you to breathe a word of what you find out in this book. Keep everything under your hat! Wait a minute, wait a minute…that might not work. I’m not in a confessional booth, and a lot of you are probably not priests. This is a book!

In every classic comedy duo, from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to Martin and Lewis, in order for the exchange to work, the quality of the straight man had to be as dynamic as that of the funny guy. Carl was the best at this. I could use a single question as a springboard to unplanned exposition and tangents that would be as much of a surprise to Carl as they were to the audience. Carl was a gifted partner: While he deferred the punch lines to me, he knew me well enough to follow along and cross paths enough to set me up for more opportunities. He also knew he could throw me a complete curveball and I’d swing for the fences. We were a great ad-libbed high-wire act, and like the best high-wire acts, ours was dependent upon complete trust and respect for each other. Carl once said, “A brilliant mind in panic is a wonderful thing to behold.

The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers. In

His lips curl and he meets my gaze. “Brooke Dumas.” He just fucked my name right in front of me. And right in front of Mel.

remember one day when we were out shooting on location, I said to him, “Slim, you’ve made a thousand movies. I’ve only made two. Give me some advice.” He said, “Well, Mel, whenever you get a chance—sit down. Directing takes a lot out of you and you’re too busy to notice how tired you are.

Anytime I could make Carl laugh, I knew I had a winner.

I’ve worked with many great people in my life, but there will never be another Carl Reiner.

Lizzie” or a “Flivver.

Comedy brings religious persecutors, dictators, and tyrants to their knees faster than any other weapon.

We held our breaths for a month and a half until we got word from the Red Cross that he was alive and a prisoner of war. The Red Cross went to prisoners of war and they did a lovely thing, they recorded them saying or singing things and they sent those recordings to their loved ones back home. Lenny loved to sing so he recorded a song called “Miss You.” My mother would put that little cardboard record on every night and cry. Every single night! Finally I said, “Mom, maybe just hold the record? Maybe don’t put it on so much? I mean he’s alive, but it’s depressing hearing him sing every night!” Even though we loved him dearly, truth is he was slightly off-key. —

Nuit-Saint-Georges, a French pinot noir from a sub-region of Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits. All I can tell you is that it was a profound taste revelation! Ever since that night I have loved

Larry Clinton and his vocalist, Bea Wain,

There’s only one true test of a comedy, and that’s outright laughter. I don’t care how beautiful the lighting is, how superlative the script is, how wonderful the performances are. If you’re making a comedy and the audience isn’t falling down, holding their bellies, screaming with laughter, you’ve probably got a failure. First laughter and then everything else.

Failure is vital. It is an incredibly important quotient in the equation of a career. After you wipe away your tears, it’s not a bad experience and under the right circumstances it will make you better, both as a person and as an artist. I think it’s important to fail, especially between the ages of twenty and thirty. Success is like sugar. It’s too good. It’s too sweet. It’s too wonderful and it burns up very quickly. Failure is like corned beef hash. It takes a while to eat.

Comedy is a weird but very beautiful thing. 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.

In the classic comedy movie The Producers by Mel Brooks, there is a scene where dozens of glitter-clad Nazis sing a joyous song called “Springtime for Hitler.” At the end of the song, the opening night audience, adorned in black tie and gala dresses, are stunned into a deafening silence with mouths literally stuck open. That was the effect of Trump’s speech. His followers loved it. When their senses came back to them, it was the consensus of the Washington punditocracy that this was the darkest inaugural speech given in American history. It would simply be referred to as the “American carnage” speech. Republican Michael Green told Foreign Policy magazine: “Where friends and allies around the world look to new presidents’ inaugural addresses in hopes of seeing Aragorn, they heard from Trump only Gollum.”9 Former president George W. Bush was overheard to mutter, “That was some weird shit.

Failure is vital. It is an incredibly important quotient in the equation of a career. After you wipe away your tears, it’s not a bad experience and under the right circumstances it will make you better, both as a person and as an artist.

Comedy is a very powerful component in 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 s sense of humor. Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long good bye. Its a defense against unhappiness and depression.

In 1931 Ilf and Petrov published another novel, The Golden Calf (Золотой телёнок), chronicling the further adventures of Ostap Bender. In the sequel, he is as enterprising as ever in pursuing the money of a clandestine Soviet millionaire, although possibly his lust for life seems to have dimmed a bit. The Twelve Chairs was still read and quoted by my classmates in the 1980s. In post-Soviet Russia the figure of Ostap Bender was elevated to “предприниматель” – entrepreneur – rather than crook, and his statue adorns several Russian towns. In his creators’ native city, Odessa, there is a commemorative plaque to Bender, and a statue of a chair from the novel on one of the main streets, Deribasovskaya. The novel has been turned into a film three times in Russia, in 1971, in 1976 and 2004; there is also a 1970 US version by Mel Brooks.

Bloom, look at me. Look at me, Bloom. Bloom I'm drowning. Other men sail through life, Bialystock has struck a reef. Bloom, I'm going under. I'm being sunk by a society that demands success when all I can offer is failure. Bloom, I'm reaching out to you. Don't send me to prison. HELLLLLP!!!

MEL BROOKS: I think the word should be author, I’m not sure, but if the French want to say auteur, let’s not quarrel with them. They’re okay.

As long as the world keeps spinning, people are going to be dizzy and confused.

You misunderstood Mr. Inferno. He said, umm… uniform. Mel Brooks likes to wear uniforms of Unicorns and that Mr. Inferno commuted him to the poker game him in his uniform of a… umm, Unicorn.” “In a thunderstorm,” Tiara added quickly. “On the Day of the Dead, which celebrates Hell… and sugar skulls and… food.” “In October I think,” Astrid added, confusing Maury even more.

When Ethel Merman belted out “You’re the Top” even though Uncle Joe and I were two miles away in the cheap seats, it was thrilling but maybe a little too loud. What a voice! They said she could hold a note longer than the Chase National Bank.

But let’s get back to Melvin Kaminsky.

My wit is often characterized as being Jewish comedy. Occasionally, that’s true. But for the most part to characterize my humor as purely Jewish humor is not accurate. It’s really New York humor. New York humor is not just Jewish humor. It has a certain rhythm. It has a certain intensity and a certain pulse.

call m-m-me.” Then there was a long pause and he said, “If n-n-nobody answers…” another pause, “…it’s m-me!

Farts are a repressed minority. The mouth gets to say all kinds of things, but the other place is supposed to keep quiet. But maybe our lower colons have something interesting to say. Maybe we should listen to them. Farts are human, more human than a lot of people I know. I think we should bring them out of the water closet and into the parlor, and that’s what I did in Blazing Saddles.

That’s the wonderful thing about the theater. Unlike in the movies where once a movie is finished and released you can’t change it, in the theater a show is a living thing. When you realize something is wrong you can actually fix it and mount a new production.

A lot of people don’t realize that without a valley, there is no peak. Without information, there is no joke. You’ve got to set things up.

When writing for other comedians, someone once told me, “I want to make it my own.” I’d say, “Look, the jokes are written. The relationships are written. First, do it as written. Later you can make it your own.” A lot of people don’t realize that without a valley, there is no peak. Without information, there is no joke. You’ve got to set things up.

He was an incredibly good neighbor because he would come over and spill his troubles and worries to me, and I would spill all my doubts and fears to him. We would buoy each other up with false statements and lies.

All hell breaks loose because they are doing what the Marx Brothers do, jamming a hundred people into a ship’s tiny stateroom. They are crazy and anarchic, but they still have charm and warmth. They married intellectuality and a brushstroke of wit with their great physical comedy. The Three Stooges were a brilliant combination of timing and earnestness. They are very serious. Their physical timing was impeccable. They never laugh, or break up, or seem to enjoy the violence they inflict upon one another. They left that for the audience. They showed me that comedy is a juxtaposition of textures. Later in my career I got to do a Stooges-like routine with Rudy De Luca in Life Stinks when we slap each other silly. I

comedy records helped make Mel Brooks a star.

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

In every classic comedy duo, from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to Martin and Lewis, in order for the exchange to work, the quality of the straight man had to be as dynamic as that of the funny guy. Carl was the best at this. I

Maxwell Smart: And I happen to know that at this very minute, seven Coast Guard cutters are converging on this boat. Would you believe it, seven? Mr. Big: I find that pretty hard to believe. Maxwell Smart: Would you believe six? Mr. Big: I don’t think so. Maxwell Smart: How about two cops in a rowboat?

While Anne and I were visiting my mother in Florida, I rented a Lincoln Town Car to drive around. One day I pulled up outside of The Presidential in it to pick up my mom and Aunt Sadie for dinner. When I got out of the car a guy in a chauffer’s cap threw a question at me. He said, “Who ya got?” I didn’t know what he was talking about…and then I realized that I was parked next to another black Lincoln Town Car that was clearly for hire. He repeated his question. He said, “Who ya got? Who ya driving?” I said, “Oh! Mel Brooks. I’m driving Mel Brooks.” I didn’t want to lie to him. He said, “Mel Brooks? Wow. Is he a good tipper?” I said, “The best!

expression

In keeping with James Whale, I went back to old-fashioned 1930s editing techniques

The movie may be slapstick, but it is not slapdash. It has been conceived and completed as a coherent whole, done in luminously perfect black and white. Everything, most particularly the music, is poignantly faithful to the spirit of old times…. There are Vaudeville jokes that may well be older than Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley herself…but they are spaced along a carefully developed story line which is executed by a team of hugely talented comic actors rather than one-lining comics.

James Whale.

I got it! I got it! I got it!…I ain’t got it.

They seized on that word and with my blessing made a beautiful cabernet sauvignon called Harumph. So if you’re disappointed when you don’t get a “harrumph” out of your audience, you can always buy a great bottle of Harumph wine instead.

I didn’t realize it but I might have created the first cell phone. Had I patented it, I probably would have made so much money that I wouldn’t have had to write this book.

Sid had a cerebral band of writers, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen, Mike Stuart, Shelly Keller, Neil Simon, not to mention contributors like Carl Reiner, Howie Morris, and Sid himself.

Mary Shelley, who at only nineteen years of age conceived her immortal Gothic novel, Frankenstein. Needless to say, Gene Wilder and I will always be in her debt.