Woody Allen.

My Relationship with Hollywood Isn’t Love Hate, It’s Love Contempt. I’ve Never Had to Suffer Any of the Indignities That One Associates with the Studio System. I’ve Always Been Independent in New York by Sheer Good Luck. but I Have an Affection for Hollywood Because I’ve Had so Much Pleasure from Films That Have Come Out of There. Not a Whole Lot of Them, but a Certain Amount of Them Have Been Very Meaningful to Me.

The Two Biggest Myths About Me Are That I’m an Intellectual, Because I Wear These Glasses, and That I’m an Artist Because My Films Lose Money. Those Two Myths Have Been Prevalent for Many Years.

Join the Army, See the World, Meet Interesting People and Kill Them.

Not Only Is There No God, but Try Getting a Plumber on Weekends.

If It Turns Out That There Is a God, I Don’t Think That He’s Evil. but the Worst That You Can Say About Him Is That Basically He’s an Underachiever.

To You, I’m an Atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.

If Only God Would Give Me Some Clear Sign! Like Making a Large Deposit in My Name at a Swiss Bank.

Time Is Nature’s Way of Keeping Everything from Happening at Once.

My One Regret in Life Is That I Am Not Someone Else.

There Was No Ripple Professionally for Me at All When I Was in the Papers with My Custody Stuff. I Made My Films, I Worked in the Streets of New York, I Played Jazz Every Monday Night, I Put a Play On. Everything Professionally Went Just the Same. There Were No Repercussions. There Was White Hot Interest for a While, Like with All Things Like That, and Then It Became Uninteresting to People.

The Directors That Have Personal, Emotional Feelings for Me Are Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, and I’m Sure There Has Been Some Influence but Never a Direct One. I Never Set Out to Try and Do Anything Like Them. But, You Know, When You Listen to a Jazz Musician Like Charlie Parker for Years and You Love It, Then You Start to Play an Instrument, You Automatically Play Like That at First, Then You Branch off with Your Own Things. the Influence Is There, It’s in Your Blood.

Hollywood for the Most Part Aimed at the Lowest Common Denominator. It’s Conceived in Venality, It’s Motivated by Pandering to the Public, by Making a Lot of Money. People Like Ingmar Bergman Thought About Life, and They Had Feelings, and They Wanted to Dramatize Them and Engage One in a Dialogue. I Felt I Couldn’t Easily Be Engaged by the Nonsense That Came Out of Hollywood.

I Had a Line in One of My Movies Everyone Knows the Same Truth. Our Lives Consist of How We Choose to Distort It. One Person Will Distort It with a Kind of Wishful Thinking Like Religion, Someone Else Will Distort It by Thinking Political Solutions Are Going to Do Something, Someone Else Will Think a Life of Sensuality Is Going to Do It, Someone Else Will Think Art Transcends. Art for Me Has Always Been the Catholicism of the Intellectuals. There Is No Afterlife for the Catholics Really, and There’s No Afterlife for the Arts. Your Painting Lived on After You Well, That Doesn’t Really Do It. That’s Not What You Want. Even If Your Painting Does Have Some Longevity, Eventually That’s Going to Go. There Won’t Be Any Works of William Shakespeare or Ludwig Van Beethoven, or Any Theatre to See Them In, or Air or Light. I’ve Always Felt You’ve Got to Live Your Life Within the Context of This Worst Case Scenario. Which Is True; the Worst Case Scenario Is Here.

When I Was a Kid, Movies from Hollywood Seemed Very Glamorous, but When You Look Back at Them as a Young Man, You Can See Out of the Thousands of Films That Came Out of Hollywood There Were Really Very Few Good Ones Statistically, and Those Few That Were Good Were Made in Spite of the Studios. I Saw European Films as a Young Man and They Were Very Much Better. There’s No Comparison.

I Was Just a Poor Student. I Had No Interest in It. When I Make a Film the Tacit Contract with the Audience Is That I Will Give Them Some Entertainment and Not Bore Them. I Have to Do That. I Just Lay a Message on Them. Great Filmmakers, Like Ingmar Bergman or Akira Kurosawa or Federico Fellini, They’re Very Entertaining, Their Films Are Fun. Well, in College They Never Made It Entertaining for Me, They Just Bored Me Stiff.

The Biggest Flaw in Being Self Taught Is There Are Gaps. You Self Teach Yourself Something and You Think You Know Something Fairly Well, but Then There Are Gaps a University Teacher Would Have Taught You as Part of a Mandatory Program. I Would Probably Have Been Better off If I’d Got a Better General Education, but I Was Just so Bored.

Of Course, I Would Love Everybody to See My Films. but I Don’t Care Enough Ever to Do Anything About It. I Would Never Change a Word or Make a Movie That I Thought They Would Like. I Really Don’t Care If They Come or Not. If They Don’t Want to Come, Then They Don’t; If They Do Come, Then Great. Do I Want to Do What I Do Uncompromisingly, and Would I Love It If a Big Audience Came? Yes, That Would Be Very Nice. I’ve Never Done Anything to Attract an Audience, Though I Always Get Accused of It Over the Years.

I Took a Speed Reading Course and Read War and Peace in 20 Minutes. It Involves Russia

When I Was in My Early 20S, I Knew a Man Who Has Since Died Who Was Older Than Me and Also Very Crazy. He’d Been in a Straitjacket and Institutionalized, and I Found Him Very Brilliant. When I Would Speak to Him About Writing, About Life, Art, Women, He Was Very, Very Cogent but He Couldn’t Lead His Own Life, He Just Couldn’t Manage.

With My Complexion I Don’t Tan, I Stroke.

I Always Think It Is a Mistake to Try and Be Young, Because I Feel the Young People in the United States Have Not Distinguished Themselves. the Young Audience in the United States Have Not Proven to Me That They Like Good Movies or Good Theatre. the Films That Are Made for Young People Are Not Wonderful Films, They Are Not Thoughtful. They Are These Blockbusters with Special Effects. the Comedies Are Dumb, Full of Toilet Jokes, Not Sophisticated at All. and These Are the Things the Young People Embrace. I Do Not Idolize the Young.

Man Was Made in God’s Image. Do You Really Think God Has Red Hair and Glasses?

Most of Life Is Tragic. You’re Born, You Don’t Know Why. You’re Here, You Don’t Know Why. You Go, You Die. Your Family Dies. Your Friends Die. People Suffer. People Live in Constant Terror. the World Is Full of Poverty and Corruption and War and Nazis and Tsunamis. the Net Result, the Final Count Is, You Lose You Don’t Beat the House.

Life Is for the Living.

My Brain: It’s My Second Favorite Organ.

I Don’t Believe in an Afterlife, Although I’m Bringing Along a Change of Underwear.

Organized Crime in America Takes in Over $40 Billion a Year and Spends Very Little on Office Supplies.