Woody Allen - Citat
Actor: So what do you do for a living?
Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
dishes for Chinese restaurants.
All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are
Socrates.
As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's
so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
twenty minutes. It's about Russia.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
in my name at a Swiss bank.
It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry
a tune.
It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not
desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it
happens.
More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One
path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter
of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund
is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --
unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is
careful not to make any poultry jokes ...
Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
it's one of the best.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get
much sleep.
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
"To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I
definitely overpaid for my carpet.
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's
worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently
there must be a beverage.
"The food at this place is really terrible". And the
other one says: "Yeah, I know. And such small portions."
I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone
like me for member.
Mother(to doctor): He's been depressed. All of a sudden, he can't
do anything.
Doc: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Mother: Tell doctor [?] It's something he read.
Doc: Something you read, heah?
Alvy: The universe is expanding.
Doc: The universe is expanding?
Alvy: Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding,
someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!
Mother(shouting): What is that your business? (to doctor) He stopped
doing his homework.
Alvy: What's the point?
Mother: What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in
Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!
Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.
And of course, those who couldn't do anything, I think, were assign
to our school.
["Always the wrong answer". Notice the slap at the end.....]
[...] In the event of war, I'm a hostage.
[Jew -- d'you]
I don't wanna live in a city where the only cultural advantage
is that you can make a right turn on a red light.
[I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here.]
Sometimes I ask myself how I'd stand up under torture.
[...] If Gestapo takes away your Bloomingsdale's charge card,
you'll tell them everything.
[...] I interestingly dated a woman in the Eisenhover administration,
briefly, and it was ironic to me because I was trying to do to
her what Eisenhover has been doing to the country for the last
[?] years.
[la-di-da]
I'm so tired of spending evenings making fake insights with people
who work for Dysentery.
Commentary!
Really, I've heard that Commentary and Dissent merged and formed
Dysentery
A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know, it has to
constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on
our hands is a dead shark.
Diane: I live up here. Oh my God. Look! There's a parking space.
Woody: That's OK. We can walk to the curb from here.
George is standing in line, oh this is..., and... getting his
free turkey. The thing is that he falls asleep and he never wakes
up. So, he's dead. He's dead. Yeah. Oh dear. Well. Terrible huh?
I mean, that's pretty awful... It's a great story, though. I mean,
it really made my day.
I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
That's the two categories. The horrible be like, I don't know,
terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't
know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable
is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable,
because that's very lucky, to be miserable.
Do you love me? Love is too weak a word. I leuve you. I loave
you. I lough you. I have to invent... of course I love you.
I was thrown out of there during my freshman year, for cheating
on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of
the boy sitting next to me.
I was in analysis. I was suicidal as a matter of fact and would
have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian,
and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you
miss.
Annie: You followed me. I can't believe it.
Alvy: I didn't follow you.
Annie:You followed me.
Alvy: Why? Because I was walking along the block behind you staring
at you? That's not following.
Annie:Well, what's your definition of following?
Alvy: Following is different. I was spying.
Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love.
Annie: Then she mentioned penis envy. Do you know anything about
that?
Alvy: Me? I'm one of the few males who suffers from that.
Alvy: You look like a really happy couple? Are you?
Woman: Yeah.
Alvy: Yeah? So how to you count for it?
Woman: I am very shallow and empty, and I have no ideas and nothing
interesting to say.
Man: And I'm exactly the same way.
Alvy: I see. That's very interesting. So you managed to work out
something?
Man: Right!
Pam: Sex with you is really a kafkaesque experience.
Alvy: Oh, thank you.
Pam: I mean that as a compliment.
That's about 2000 dollars an ounce.
Really,....... [sneeze] [white powder all over....]
I'm a cartoon character, I don't have a period!
At the moment it's just a Notion, but with a bit of backing I
think I could turn it into a
Concept, and then an Idea.
I forgot my mantra.
I don't respond well to mellow, you know what I mean, I... I have
a tendency to ... if I get too mellow, I... I ripen and then rot.
In Beverly Hills... they don't throw their garbage away. They
make it into television shows.
That was the most fun I've ever had without laughing.
Annie: You know I just like to smoke a little something before
sex, it helps me relax
Alvy: How about I give you some Sodium Pentathol and can sleep
through the whole thing.
Chapter One: He was as tough and romatic as the city he loved.
Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of
a jungle cat.... New York was his town. And it always would be.
You shouldn't ask me for advice. When it comes to my relationships
with women, I'm the winner of the August Strindberg Award.
I want you to enjoy me. My wry sense of humor and astonishing
sexual technique.
[...] negative capability [...]
They probably sit around on the floor with wine and cheese and
mispronounce allegorical and didacticism.
What does money got to do with it? I've got enough for a year
if I live like Mahatma Gandhi. My accountant says that I did this
on a very bad time. My stocks are down. I'm cash poor, or something.
I've got no cash flow. I'm not liquid. Something is not flowing.
I don't know, but those people got a language of their own those
guys.
This is going to kill my father. He is not going to get as good
a seat in the synagogue. He's going to be in the back away from
God; far from the action.
I finally had an orgasm and my doctor told me it was the wrong
kind.
I thought I took it rather well after the circumstances. I tried
to run them both over with a car.
But you were so beautiful that I got myself a new analyst.
How often can you make love on an evening.
A lot.
Yeah, I can tell; a lot. A lot is my favorite number. Gee. Really.
Can you?
Let's do it some strange way that you always wanted do but nobody
would do it with you.
I'm shocked. What kind of talk is that from a kid your age? Well,
I'll get my scuba diving equipment...
I could tell by the sound of your voice over the phone. Very authoritative
you know, like the Pope or the computer in 2001.
You don't get suspecious when your analyst calls you up at three
in the morning and weeps into the telephone?
I had a mad impulse to throw you down on the lunar surface and
commit interstellar perversion with you.
You look so beautiful I can hardly keep my eyes on the meter.
What did your analyst say? I mean, did you speek to him?
Well, Donny is in a coma. He had a very bad acid experience.
You think you're God! I gotta model myself after someone.
Ending
I mean I'm from Philadelphia. I don't even believe in God or anything...
Isaac: I did not try to run her over....it was dark...the driveway
was very slippery...you know I don't drive well...
Jill: Oh yeah? What would Freud say?
Isaac: Freud would say I wanted to run her over. That's why he
was a genius.
How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how
the can opener works!
If Jesus Christ came back today and saw what was being done in
his name, he'd never stop throwing up.
I went into a store, I bought a rifle. I was gonna. . . you know,
if they told me that I had a tumor, I was going to kill myself.
The only thing that might've stopped me, might've, is my parents
would be devastated. I would, I woulda' had to shoot them, also,
first. And then, I have an aunt and an uncle, I would have, you
know, it would have been a bloodbath.
But you know, I've never been able to fall in love. I've never
been able to find the perfect woman. There's always something
wrong. And then I met Doris. A wonderful woman. Great personality.
But for some reason, I'm just not turned on sexually by her. Don't
ask me why. And then I met Rita. An animal. Nasty, mean, trouble.
And I love going to bed with her. Though afterward I always wished
that I was back with Doris. And then, I thought to myself, if
only I could put Doris's brain in Rita's body. Wouldn't that be
wonderful? And I though, Why not? What the hell, I'm a surgeon.
. . So, I performed the operation and everything went perfectly.
I switched their personalities and I took all the badness and
put it over there. And I made Rita into a warm, wonderful, charming,
sexy, sweet, giving, mature woman. And then I fell in love with
Doris.
There are only two things that you can control in life: art and
masturbation.
You use sex to express every emotion except love
I thought your line was great about, uh, "life doesn't imitate
art, it imitates bad television." I mean, it's completely
true.
"There are rumors that Woody Allen went to dinner with Diane Keaton.
Imagine that! She's old enough to be his WIFE!!!!"
All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal.
Therefore, all men are Socrates.
I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
twenty minutes.
It's about Russia.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
in my name at a Swiss bank.
It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not
desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
It's not that I'm afraid to die.
I just don't want to be there when it happens.
Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
it's one of the best.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get
much sleep.
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad.
The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
To YOU I'm an atheist;
to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?
In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?
Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam:
I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
Why does man kill? He kills for food.
And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?
In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food:
frequently there must be a beverage.
The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no
afterlife -- a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to
shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know
where it's being held.
Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a
plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like
meringue.
I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my
name at a Swiss bank.
I've never been an intellectual but I have this look.
The difference between sex and death is, death you can do alone
and nobody laughs at you.
I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.
My only regret in life is that I wasn't born someone else
As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's
so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but
the calf won't get much sleep.
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
There's an old joke.
Uh, two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of 'em says: "Boy, the food at this place is a really terrible."
The other one says, "Year, I know, and such ... small portions."
Well, that's essentially how I feel about life.
Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness,
and it's all over much too quickly.
The --- the other important joke for me is
one that's, uh, usually attributed to Groucho Marx,
but I think it appears originally in Freud's wit
and it's relation to the unconscious.
And it goes like this --- I'm paraphrasing: Uh . . .
"I would never wanna belong to any club
that would have someone like me for a member."
That's the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.
...I-I thought of that old joke, you know, this-this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says,
"Doc, uh, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's chicken."
And, uh, the doctor says,
"Well, why don't you turn him in?"
And the guy says,
"I would , but I need eggs."
Well, I guess that's pretty much how I feel about relationships.
You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and . . . but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs.
"In formulating any philosophy, the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That
is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable.
Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the
problem when he wrote, "My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite
friendly with my legs." By "knowable," incidentally, I do not mean that which can be known by
perception of the senses, or that which can be grasped by the mind, but more that which can be
said to be Known or to possess a Knownness or Knowability, or at least something you can
mention to a friend."
My good friend Jacques Monod spoke often of the randomness of the cosmos. He believed
everything in existence occured by pure chance with the possible exception of his breakfast,
which he felt certain was made by his housekeeper.
Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates.
Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably
profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around a Swedish airline
stewardess and some handcuffs...
She is beautiful, Kugelmass thought. What a contrast with the troglodyte who shared his bed!
He dies at eighty-five, from a combination of smallpox and a tomahawk in the skull.
Non-Existence: What To Do If It Suddenly Strikes You
His silence, too, put people off, but he felt speech was a flawed method of communication
and he preferred to hold even his most intimate conversations with signal flags. (...) "God
is silent," he was fond of saying, "now if we can only get Man to shut up."
My problems all started with my early education. I went to a school 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?
Overpopulation will exaberbate problems to the breaking point. Figures tells us there are
already more people on earth than we need to move even the heaviest piano.
We know that the most advanced computer in the world does not have a brain as sophisticated
as that of an ant. True, we could say that of many of our relatives but we only have to put
up with them at weddings or special occasions.
What Mr. Plotnick fails to take into account in discussing Mario Spinelli's fettuccine is,
of course, the size of the portions, or, to put it more directly, the quantity of the
noodles. There are obviously as many odd-numbered noodles as all the odd- and even-numbered
noodles combined. (Clearly a paradox.) The logic breaks down linguistically, and
consequently Mr. Plotnick cannot use the word "fettuccine" with any accuracy. Fettuccine
becomes a symbol; that is to say, let the fettuccine = x. Then a = x/b (b standing for a
constant equal to half of any entrée). By this logic, one would have to say: the fettuccine
is the linguine! How ridiculous. The sentence clearly cannot be stated as "The fettuccine
was delicious." It must be stated as "The fettuccine and the linguine are not the rigatoni."
As Gödel declared over and over, "Everything must be translated into logical calculus before
being eaten."