Woody Allen: Quotes about life

Woody Allen is American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Woody Allen: 458 quotes31 likes

“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”

“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.”

“Showing up is 80 percent of life.”

Attributed
Context: I have learned one thing. As Woody says, "Showing up is 80 percent of life." Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both. - 1977 August 21, New York Times, Section 2: Arts and Leisure, He’s Woody Allen’s Not-So-Silent Partner by Susan Braudy, Page 11 (ProQuest Page 83), New York.

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.”

“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”

“Life is short. Short, and not about anything except what you can touch and what touches you.”

“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.”

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

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

“In my next life I want to live backwards. Start out dead and finish off as an orgasm.”

“Why not? Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain - and this is a chance for something special.”

Source: Unknown Book 7074565

“While we're waiting for a cab I'll give you your lesson for today. Don't listen to what your teachers tell ya, you know. Don't pay attention. Just, just see what they look like and that's how you'll know what life is really gonna be like.”

“I believe people ought to mate for life… like pigeons or Catholics.”

Source: Manhattan

“You'll find as you go through life that great depth and smoldering sensuality don't always win.”

“[…] I've come to the conclusion that the artist can not justify life or come up with a cogent reason as to why life is meaningful, but the artist can provide you with a cold glass of water on a hot day.”

“I like the rain. It washes memories off the sidewalk of life.”

Source: Manhattan

“You're still in love'
'No I'm not, I'm not She'll always be a part of me, and she's an important person in my life but for the two of us something wasn't working.'
'What element?'
'We never found out”

“I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn’t do it, that’s why they don’t accomplish a thing, they don’t do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say [sic] my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.”

Interview for The Collider (2008) http://collider.com/entertainment/interviews/article.asp/aid/8878/tcid/1/pg/2.

“I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.”

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

“You know, the whole American culture is going down the drain, you can't turn on a television set and see anything, or walk in the street and not find garbage, or neighborhoods that were formerly beautiful now have McDonald's in them, and it's all a part of an enormous degeneration of culture in the United States. People that exist in that culture are forced to make moral decisions all the time about their lives, their occupations, their love-lives, and they make decisions that are commensurate with what's happening to them in this culture, and it's too bad that that's happening because that's what Manhattan is about, that New York used to be such a great city, so wonderful, and it has to fight every day for its survival against the encroachment of all this terrible ugliness that is gradually overcoming all the big cities in America.
This ugliness comes from a culture that has no spiritual center, a culture that has money and education, but no sense of being at peace with the world, no sense of purpose in life. They don't know what they're doing, or why they're here. They have no religious center, they have no philosophical center, and so they act, they do what's expedient at the moment. They have no long view of society. They only have the view of quick money, and kill the pain of the moment, and so instead of dealing with the real problems that exist, that are complicated, they sweep them under the rug by turning on the television set, or taking cocaine, or doing many things that enable them to escape confrontation with the unpleasant realities of the world.”

[Allen, Woody, France Roche, Woody Allen, ou L'Anhedoniste; le Plus Drole du Monde, New York, 1979, France 2, 05 January 2013]
Others