Woody's Quotes & Sayings

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song. — John Mellencamp

If there is reincarnation, I'd like to come back as Warren Beatty's fingertips. — Woody Allen

It's always been a dream of mine to be in a Woody Allen comedy. — Jennifer Carpenter

With me; it's just a genetic dissatisfaction with everything. — Woody Allen

If I can play a scene in a master shot, I always prefer it. And the actors always prefer it. It's fun to look at on the screen, the actors get a chance to sink their teeth into something substantial, and it's economically helpful. — Woody Allen

All of audio as we know it is an attempt to be more and more perfectly linear. Linearity means higher quality sound. Hypersonic sound is exactly the opposite: it's 100 percent based on non-linearity. — Woody Norris

The only thing that does change, to some degree, is [that] you have some life experiences, you suffer a certain amount and you incorporate that into your work. Not in the content of your work, but in the sensibility of your work. It's nothing that you try and do; it just happens. And if you're lucky, people buy tickets to see it, and if you're not lucky, [then] they don't like it. But that's all. — Woody Allen

A part of me looks at life from a dismal perspective, not unlike Woody Allen and Larry David. But I don't want to look at life like that. It's bad enough that I have to think it. What works for me is writing against that view. There is God, there is love, there is greatness, there is a plan, and there is beauty. — Corbin Bernsen

You make a film and always hope you're going make "Citizen Kane" or "The Bicycle Thief." You make the film, and for one reason or another, one clicks and one doesn't, but it's out of your control completely. — Woody Allen

I hate reality but it's still the best place to get a good steak. — Woody Allen

I would not like to live in the past because you don't get anesthetic when you go to the dentist. You don't get antibiotics. You don't get the things that you are used to now, cell phones and televisions and things that are very convenient. You don't want that. But, it would be fun if you could, every now and then, just meet a friend for lunch at Maxim's in Paris in 1900, or go back to 1870 just for a couple of hours, take a walk in the park, and then come right back to Broadway. — Woody Allen

It's just gossip, you know. Gossip is the new pornography. — Woody Allen

The only thing I ever saw that came close to Objective Journalism was a closed-circuit TV setup that watched shoplifters in the General Store at Woody Creek, Colorado. — Hunter S. Thompson

In fact, when they wake up in the morning, they're Jack Nicholson or Robert De Niro or Josh Brolin. And it's built-in, but they think it's all this other stuff. But it's not. They'd be great if they didn't think about their part or if they did think about it. — Woody Allen

I used to love Woody Allen but feel he's become a hack as a director. 'Bullets Over Broadway' is the only film of his I've enjoyed in the last 10 years. — Douglas Wood

It's never an upset if the so-called underdog has all along considered itself the better team. — Woody Hayes

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. — Woody Hayes

What if Woody Allen called me and said, I'm working on this movie and there's a really divine role for you. We want exactly you! It would be such a fantasy. Forget it! My idol, Woody Allen! — Isaac Mizrahi

Picking an assistant coach, the first thing I was interested in was the man's character. — Woody Hayes

I love 'Husbands and Wives,' Woody Allen's movie. It's like one of my all-time favorites. I could watch it over and over again. — Zoe Lister-Jones

In football we always said that the other team couldn't beat us. We had to be sure that we didn't beat ourselves. And that's what people have to do, too-make sure they don't beat themselves. — Woody Hayes

It's embarrassing that we're in the 21st century and we don't even know what makes gravity work. I'm getting older and thinking maybe I should tackle more than the mundane. I may fail, but at least I will have tried. — Woody Norris

No one turns down a film with Woody; it's something everyone wants in their career as an important moment. He's such a comedic genius, without question, so I was thrilled. — Mark Rydell

I went to high school right outside Dallas, and (songwriter and performer) Michael Martin Murphey was a senior there when I was a sophomore or junior, really into folk and acoustic music. Larry Gross, who's the host of "Mountain Stage" on public radio, and B.W. Stevenson, also a musician, were there at the same time, too. Michael was a big inspiration
through him I discovered Woody Guthrie, Dylan, Jimmy Rogers. Then I ran into Jerry Jeff Walker there in Dallas back when he was just a folk singer. Those are my earliest influences. — Ray Wylie Hubbard

I prize my downtime, count on it as a writer, a parent, a person. Sometimes I think of Woody Allen's remark about masturbation, that it is sex with someone he loves. I feel as though being alone is hanging out with someone I like. — Anna Quindlen

Woody Allen - nobody has been a better joke teller than him - and even in his great films, it's always coming out of the character. If you don't have that, jokes are just empty and I think that people rely too much on jokes. — Brett Gelman

Fantasy is seductive and much more wonderful than reality, but you can't take it to the bank. It's always an escape. And if used as an escape, as in attending a movie or a show for a circumscribed period of time, it's fine. When it starts to become undifferentiated from reality, it leads to big trouble. — Woody Allen

Honey, you're the one who stopped sleeping with me, OK?
It'll be a year come April 20th.
I remember the date exactly, because it was Hitler's birthday — Woody Allen

I love baseball. You know, it doesn't have to mean anything. It's just very beautiful to watch. — Woody Allen

It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. — Woody Allen

I broke up with this girl, and they put me with a psychiatrist who said, 'Why did you get so depressed, and do all those things you did?' I said, 'I wanted this girl and she left me.'
And he said,'Well, we have to look into that.'
And I said, 'There's nothing to look into! I wanted her and she left me.' And he said, 'Well, why are you feeling so intense?'
And I said, 'Cause I want the girl!' And he said, 'What's underneath it?' And I said, 'Nothing!'
He said, 'I'll have to give you medication.'
I said, 'I don't want medication! I want the girl!'
And he said, 'We have to work this through.'
So, I took a fire extinguisher from the casement and struck him across the back of his neck. And before I knew it, guys from Con Ed had jumper cables in my head and the rest was ... — Woody Allen

Something strange is happening to me: I find myself becoming lighter and less cynical. People use sarcasm and I don't immediately pick up on it, because I don't use it anymore. When people do, it's as if I'm hearing a language I spoke fluently in my childhood, but have since lost. And I just find Woody Allen creepy. — Mara Wilson

I think people's perception is that when you're famous, you want people to love you. That's a big part of why people become famous, because they don't just want love, they want it on a grand scale. But once you realize - and it's not a big trick to really figure it out - that it's just completely artificial, an external pumping of the ego that's never going to really help you, then it's an easy thing to step out of it. That's probably why Harrison Ford lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. — Woody Harrelson

To paraphrase Woody Allen in Annie Hall, love was too weak a word for what I felt for that tiny crying creature who had my eyes, my mouth, my hair. I lurved my daughter, my Ava. I looved her. I lurfed her. — Melissa Senate

Before I opened my computer in the parking lot today, I relived one of my favorite memories. It's the one with Woody and me sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum after it's closed. We're watching people parade out of the museum in summer shorts and sandals. The trees to the south are planted in parallel lines. The water in the fountain shoots up with a mist that almost reaches the steps we sit on. We look at silver-haired ladies in red-and-white-print dresses. We separate the mice from the men, the tourists from the New Yorkers, the Upper East Siders from the West Siders. The hot-pretzel vendor sells us a wad of dough in knots with clumps of salt stuck on top. We make our usual remarks about the crazies and wonder what it would be like to live in a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Met. We laugh and say the same things we always say. We hold hands and keep sitting, just sitting, as the sun beings to set. It's a perfect afternoon. — Diane Keaton

Human existence is a brutal experience to me ... it's a brutal, meaningless experience - an agonizing, meaningless experience with some oases, delight, some charm and peace, but these are just small oases. Overall, it is a brutal, terrible experience, and so it [salvation] is what can you do to alleviate the agony of the human condition, the human predicament? That is what interests me the most. — Woody Allen

Life is unresolved, confusing, bewildering, puzzling, ambiguous. You don't really know what's going to happen. The future is uncertain for everybody. — Woody Allen

Let's say there was no terrorism whatsoever and we were all very nice to one another and we were all kind, we still would be faced with an extremely cruel and hostile universe and existence and so I'm a great pessimist and I feel that it's impossible really to be happy, and that the best you can hope for is to be distracted. — Woody Allen

Our love, our love will last forever. It's forever but it just doesn't work. That's why it will always be romantic because it can not be complete. — Woody Allen

We don't get the greatest tools to deal with anger. It's like, 'Hey, count to 10.' When someone really upsets me, how do I respond? I don't usually start counting to 10 and breathing deeply. — Woody Harrelson

When I got out of high school, I joined a local blues band in Philadelphia - Woody's Truck Stop. — Todd Rundgren

While we're waiting for a cab I'll give you your lesson for today. Don't listen to what your teachers tell ya, you know. Don't pay attention. Just, just see what they look like and that's how you'll know what life is really gonna be like. — Woody Allen

I never ever see a film of mine after I release it to the public. I see it when I shoot it in my dailies and while I'm editing it, re-editing it and reshooting it and all that. By the time it's finished I never want to see it again. — Woody Allen

When you write the script, you're home in a room by yourself, and you're writing, and there's no connection with the real performing world. So you get a lot of things wrong and make a lot of mistakes and make a lot of bad choices. — Woody Allen

To me, I think it's this thing of everyone wanting to make Jesus the Son of God and Jesus the only way to God that is the thing that no longer makes me want to be a Christian. — Woody Harrelson

I got started in Oklahoma. That's where I was born. Population down there is one-third Indians, one-third Negroes and one-third white people. — Woody Guthrie

It's all through the actors; I cannot write in that idiom — Woody Allen

I try to apply the organic concept to my clothes and bedding as well. There's nothing like swimming in organic cotton sheets. — Woody Harrelson

The Jewish culture - people that are Jewish have a certain cultural habit that they've formed and one of those habits is an appreciation of theater and music - these are cultural things one does associate with values that are promulgated by Jewish families. I think that's a good thing. — Woody Allen

Life isn't a cabaret. It's a dive bar. — Woody Paige

Science is an intellectual dead end, you know? It's a lot of little guys in tweed suits cutting up frogs on foundation grants. — Woody Allen

Hey listen
I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away. — Woody Allen

There's nothing sexier than a lapsed Catholic. — Woody Allen

When you make the film, it's like a chef who works on the meal. After you're working all day in the kitchen and dicing and cutting and putting the sauces on, you don't want to eat it. That's how I always feel about the films. I work on it for a year. I've written it, I've worked with the actors, I've edited, put the music in. I just never want to see it again. — Woody Allen

That's one of the nice things about writing, or any art; if the thing's real, it just lives. All the attendant hoopla about it, the success over it or the critical rejection - none of that really matters. In the end, the thing will survive or not on its own merits. Not that immortality via art is any big deal. Truffaut died, and we all felt awful about it, and there were the appropriate eulogies, and his wonderful films live on. But it's not much help to Truffaut. — Woody Allen

Life is full of moments that are good - winning a lottery, seeing a beautiful woman, a great dinner - but the whole thing is tragic. It's an oasis that is very pleasant. — Woody Allen

It's funny. Maria Elena and I, we are meant for each other and not meant for each other, it's a contradiction. — Woody Allen

Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.' — Adrian McKinty

In the courtroom, it's where a lawyer really becomes an actor. There's a very fine line between delivering a monologue in a play and delivering a monologue to a jury. I've always felt that way - I've been in a lot of courtrooms. The best lawyers are really theatrical. — Woody Harrelson

It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to. — Woody Allen

Even if God exists, he's done such a terrible job, it's a wonder people don't get together and file a class action suit against him. — Woody Allen

I've worked with Woody Allen twice and he was like, "Whatever you want to change, it's up to you. If you want to change the words, make them your own." — George Clooney

You know, it's one thing about intellectuals, they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on. — Woody Allen

You know what my philosophy of life is? That it's important to have some laughs, but you got to suffer a little too, because otherwise you miss the whole point to life. — Woody Allen

Sometimes, when things go well on a set, or when you are working with somebody like Pedro Almodovar, Woody Allen, Rob Marshall or somebody so talented and so inspiring, it's really beautiful, what happens there. — Penelope Cruz

What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously - but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself. — Woody Allen

I used to have Bible studies at my house. I was in the choir. I was mischievous but also a real mama's boy. It was a pretty happy childhood. — Woody Harrelson

Sometimes I feel people think I live on a commune but I don't. We are all solar, though. There are no power lines. It's mostly farmers, so everyone who has tractors uses bio-diesel. — Woody Harrelson

What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays' Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people ... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie ... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it's down to us. — Jim Hightower

As I got more confident, I was able to let actors improvise, and do long takes. It's 10%, 5% you learn and experience. The rest you just have or you don't have. — Woody Allen

There is always the possibility that people will change. Real change is more rare. You are who you are at a certain age in life you are pretty much a variation of that your whole life. It?s conceivable that you will change but it's not likely. — Woody Allen

It's about Russia. — Woody Allen

Curiosity, that's what kills us. Not muggers or all that bullshit about the ozone layer. It's our own hearts and minds. — Woody Allen

There's a tacit agreement between myself and the audience that I will entertain them when they buy their ticket, and I've been the one that has screwed that up. Once in while I indulge myself and try something else, and I keep my fingers crossed that it will come out good and there'll be enough people who will enjoy it, but that doesn't often happen. — Woody Allen

They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took out a large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then said: "Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with another five, or here she stays. — Mark Twain

I've inherited the worst of each parent. I have my father's hypochondria and lack of concentration. I have his amorality. I have everything bad that he had. Then I have my mother's surly, pill-like, complaining, whining attitude. — Woody Allen

Years ago I was on television having a discussion with Billy Graham about atheism. He was saying, even if you're right and I'm wrong, and there's nothing after, I will have had a better life than you, because I do believe there was something. And I couldn't argue with that, even though I wanted to. — Woody Allen

OUT TODAY - THE NEW POCKET BOOK THAT MAY REVOLUTIONIZE AMERICA'S READING HABITS' (from a 1939 Pocket Book advertisement) — Woody Haut

It's hard for me to know. I'll think, 'I really brought off my ideas, it's great,' and no one sparks to it — Woody Allen

Ministry. Sadly, there has never been a city on earth that is not saturated with human sin and corruption. Indeed, to paraphrase a Woody Allen joke, cities are just like everywhere else, only much more so. They are both better and worse, both easier and harder to live in, both more inspiring and oppressive, than other places. As redemptive history unfolds, we begin to see how the tension of the city will be resolved. The turn in the relationship between the people of God and the pagan city becomes a key aspect of God's plan to bless the nations and redeem the world. In the New Testament, we find cities playing an important role in the rapid growth of the early church and in spreading the gospel message of God's salvation. — Timothy Keller

If it turns out that there is a God ... the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. — Woody Allen

Mrs. Sol Schwimmer is suing me because I made her bridge as I felt it and not to fit her ridiculous mouth! That's right! I can't work to order like a common tradesman! I decided her bridge should be enormous and billowing, with wild, explosive teeth flaring up in every direction like fire! Now she is upset because it won't fit in her mouth! She is so bourgeois and stupid. I want to smash her! I tried forcing the false plate in but it sticks out like a star burst chandelier. Still, I find it beautiful. — Woody Allen

I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that. — Francis Ford Coppola

In order to be a writer, "Maugham continues: "one must take chances and not be afraid to look foolish. I wrote The Razor's Edge while wearing a paper hat ... . — Woody Allen

Life is tough and it's tough whether you're famous or not famous. And in the end it's probably better to be famous because the perks are better. You get better seats at the basketball game, and you get better tables and reservations places. If I call a doctor on Saturday morning I can get him. There's a lot of things, indulgences that you don't get, if you're not famous. Now I'm not saying it's fair. But I can't say that I don't enjoy it. — Woody Allen

I read 'War and Peace' in 20 minutes," he says. "It's about Russia. — Woody Allen

A stockbroker is someone who invests other people's money until it is all gone. — Woody Allen

I wish I was sort of someone like Woody Allen who can stage everything in one long master shot, no coverage; just, you know, that's it. — Jay Roach

We do not pull in and fill up. And I'll tell you why we don't. It's because I don't buy one goddamn drop of gas in the state of Michigan. We'll coast and push this goddamn car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money. — Woody Hayes

The mass media causes sexual misdirection: It prompts us to need something deeper than what we want. This is why Woody Allen has made nebbish guys cool; he makes people assume there is something profound about having a relationship based on witty conversation and intellectual discourse. There isn't. It's just another gimmick, and it's no different than wanting to be with someone because they're thin or rich or the former lead singer of Whiskeytown. — Chuck Klosterman

Raw food is the best way to have the cleanest energy. We take so much care about what kind of fuel we put in our car, what kind of oil. We care about that sometimes more than the fuel that we're looking at putting in our bodies. It's cleaner burning fuel. — Woody Harrelson

If you meet somebody and are attracted to someone, and the exquisite neurons in your brain and her brain intermesh properly, then things can be wonderful. It's not like homework. You don't have to work at the relationship. — Woody Allen

My brain? That's my second favorite organ. — Woody Allen

You look up after many years and you find that a film has become a classic because it's meaningful to people and alive, decade after decade. — Woody Allen

Barbra Streisand has always been an inspiration for me. I admire Jennifer Lopez because she's been against all the odds, and she's made such a name for herself, and she can put her name on anything and it sells, and I admire that about her, but Barbara Streisand and Woody Allen are my favorites. — Lauren London

Once the movie's over, there's not much point. When the thing is edited, mixed, and color-corrected, and you've finished it ... In my case, I never read anything about it, I never think about it. — Woody Allen

Growing up, my two favorite books were Woody Allen's 'Side Effects' and Phyllis Diller's 'Housekeeping Hints.' I carried that Phyllis Diller book with me everywhere when I was in fifth or sixth grade. Eventually, it just fell apart. — Jill Davis

I've been in so many good movies that I felt like nobody saw; it's a pretty dreadful feeling. — Woody Harrelson

The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that. — Woody Allen

I don't own a computer. I've never seen anything online at all - nothing. I don't own a word processor. I have none of that stuff. It's not an act of rebellion. I'm just not a gadget person. — Woody Allen