Quotes By Mel Brooks

There's an army story in me, and I think there's a WWII Brooks film somewhere.

I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.

If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.

You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself.

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.

But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way. He was big in size and created big laughter and joy.

He who hesitates is poor.

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.

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.

Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.

Well, just being stupid and politically incorrect doesn't work. You can be politically incorrect if you're smart.

We rest our case on the production numbers.

I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.

If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.

I was in the army, and to me it was like a newsreel.

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.

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.

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.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

My job is to go out and entertain the most people possible.

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

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'.

'Mad About You' was very fun.

It's talent. Either you got it or you ain't.

I like Chris Rock. He's dangerous.

If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.

A lot of music is mathematics. It's balance.