Mel Brooks Quotes

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit.

If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win.

Hope for the Best. Expect the worst. Life is a play. We're unrehearsed.

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

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

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

Humor is just another defense against the universe.

I don't know what to say so I'll just say what's in my heart...badoom, badoom, badoom.

My favorite expression is: When you go up to the bell, ring it ? or don't go up to the bell.

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.

Cat angels are the reason there are no mice angels.

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.

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

Being short never bothered me for three seconds. The rest of the time I wanted to commit suicide.

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

When we got to our hotel rooms, mosquitoes as big as George Foreman were waiting for us. They were sitting in armchairs with their legs crossed.

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.

You got to be brave. If you feel something, you've really got to risk it.

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.

He who hesitates is poor.

Do you have a dollar on you? I hate to answer questions for nothing.

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

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.

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

Tragedy is what happens to me; comedy is what happens to you.

If you're alive, make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death.

Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.

I usually start with the words. The rhythm of the words gives me the rhythm of the song, and then I look for the musical highlights in it to carry it.

Now thyself is more important than “Know thyself.

There's not enough bad taste! I LOVE bad taste! I live for bad taste! I am the spokesman for bad taste!

Immortality is a by-product of good work.

My mother is very short - four-eleven. She could walk under tables and never hit her head.

I'm always stunned when I find out people like Roosevelt and Tolstoy weren't Jewish. How could I love them so much?

Everything starts with writing.

Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together.

I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.

I had low blood sugar, a chemical imbalance, plus the normal nervous breakdown everyone goes through from adolescence to adulthood.

One day, God said 'Let there be prey.' And he created pigeons, rabbits, lambs and Gene Wilder.

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

I only direct in self-defense.

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

Not only should we laugh about Hitler. We must laugh about him. Especially in Berlin.

Good taste is the enemy of comedy.

The only weapon I've got is comedy

You cannot have fun with anything that you don't love or admire or respect.

I love gentiles. In fact, on of my favorite activities is Protestant spotting.

Basically, I'm a writer. I'm the proprietor of the vision. I alone know what I eventually want to happen on the screen. So if you have a valuable idea, the only way to protect it is to direct it.

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