Mel Brooks Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by Mel Brooks:
No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
A lot of music is mathematics. It's balance.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I'll accept bad taste in a minute, as long as there's some great comedy minds and performances.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
'Mad About You' was very fun.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I was in the army, and to me it was like a newsreel.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you've gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I wish I was better looking.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
He who hesitates is poor.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Judd Apatow is pretty good, both as a producer and as a director.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I loved Westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Well, you know, 'Spaceballs' is a weird combination, because it's a simple, sweet little fairytale, and it's crazy and out-there and making fun of and taking apart sci-fi, 'Star Wars', and 'Star Trek'.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
You got to be brave. If you feel something, you've really got to risk it.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
My job is to go out and entertain the most people possible.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
A brushstroke of vanity is good to add into the mix, to balance your timidity. We're all blessed with a lot of timidity and a lot of worry and anxiety, and vanity is a good antidote.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way. He was big in size and created big laughter and joy.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Humor is just another defense against the universe.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I only direct in self-defense.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
We rest our case on the production numbers.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
When you come to Germany as a Jew you have an uneasy feeling, but I've always felt okay in Berlin.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I like Chris Rock. He's dangerous.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
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
Link:
I don't have a mission. I don't have a torch to burn.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Look, I 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've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
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
Link:
If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Well, just being stupid and politically incorrect doesn't work. You can be politically incorrect if you're smart.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
These men both publicly and privately have done so much for me. Without Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick I would be living in a little motel just around the corner here, trying to make ends meet.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Immortality is a by-product of good work.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I'm still a horse that can run. I may not be able to win the Derby, but what do you do when you retire? People retire and they vegetate. They go away and they dry up.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
All short women have a delayed fuse. Marry a taller woman: My wife was an inch or two taller than me; it's a sign of security.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
It's talent. Either you got it or you ain't.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
I'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
There's an army story in me, and I think there's a WWII Brooks film somewhere.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win.
~Mel Brooks
Link:
Share:
Permalink:
Browse: