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Woody Allen Quotes
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Heywood "Woody" Allen is an American director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. He began his career as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes, where he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004 Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen the third-greatest comedian.By the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into dramatic material influenced by European art cinema during the 1970s, and alternating between comedies and dramas to the present. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. Some of the best-known of his over 50 films are Annie Hall , Manhattan , Hannah and Her Sisters , Crimes and Misdemeanors , and Midnight in Paris . In 2007 he said Stardust Memories , The Purple Rose of Cairo , and Match Point were his best films. Critic Roger Ebert described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema".Allen has received many accolades and honors. He has won four Academy Awards: three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director. He also garnered nine British Academy Film Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the "101 Funniest Screenplays". In 2011 PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen: A Documentary on its series American Masters. Wikipedia  

✵ 1. December 1935
Woody Allen photo
Woody Allen: 229 quotes31 likes

Woody Allen Quotes

“I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”

Woody Allen

Variant: My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.

“How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?”

Woody Allen

As quoted in Love, Sex, Death & The Meaning of Life : The Films of Woody Allen (2001) by Foster Hirsch, p. 50.

“Curiosity, that's what kills us. Not muggers or all that bullshit about the ozone layer. It's our own hearts and minds.”

Woody Allen

“I love nature, I just don't want to get any of it on me.”

Woody Allen

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

"The Early Essays".
Source: Without Feathers (1975)

“If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.”

Woody Allen

“he's a genius, she's a genius, wow, you know alot of geniuses, you should meet some stupid people sometime, you might learn something”

Woody Allen

“Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka's.”

Woody Allen

Source: Manhattan

“Harry: All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.”

Woody Allen

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

“I'm short enough and ugly enough to succeed on my own.”

Woody Allen

“I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said 'No.”

Woody Allen

Standup Comic (1999)
Context: A fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said "no."

“Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.”

Woody Allen book Getting Even

Getting Even (1971), My Philosophy

“Harry: Tradition is the illusion of permanence.”

Woody Allen

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

“Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”

Woody Allen

“Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes.”

Woody Allen

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

“The last woman I was in was the Statue of Liberty.”

Woody Allen

“There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?”

Woody Allen

“I am at two with nature.”

Woody Allen

“Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.”

Woody Allen

Standup Comic (1999)

“When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.”

Woody Allen

Standup Comic (1999)

“Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.”

Woody Allen book Getting Even

Getting Even (1971), My Philosophy

“The wicked at heart probably know something.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

Source: Without Feathers

“Honey! Bring down a copy of my will - and an eraser!”

Woody Allen

“Living is messy.”

Woody Allen

“Honey, you're the one who stopped sleeping with me, OK?
It'll be a year come April 20th.
I remember the date exactly, because it was Hitler's birthday”

Woody Allen

“We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices…”

Woody Allen

Source: Crimini e misfatti

“The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

"Scrolls".
Without Feathers (1975)

“Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

"Selections from the Allen Notebooks".
Source: Without Feathers (1975)

“Eternal nothingness is O. K. if you're dressed for it.”

Woody Allen book Getting Even

Getting Even (1971), My Philosophy
Variant: Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

“You know what my philosophy of life is? That it’s important to have some laughs, but you got to suffer a little too, because otherwise you miss the whole point to life.”

Woody Allen

“I read in self-defense.”

Woody Allen

“You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it's real difficult in life”

Woody Allen

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

“The heart is a very, very resilient little muscle. It really is.”

Woody Allen

Source: Hannah and Her Sisters

“In my house I'm the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.”

Woody Allen

“I don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want”

Woody Allen

“Death doesn't really worry me that much, I'm not frightened about it… I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

Woody Allen

Variant: I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.

“Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: "At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You'd be surprised how effective it can be.”

Woody Allen