9 Woody Allen Quotes on Art

Woody Allen quotes on art

8. I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.

18. It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.

104. I was supremely confident my flair for atmosphere and characterization would sparkle alongside the numbing mulch ground out by studio hacks. Certainly the space atop my mantel might be better festooned by a gold statuette than by the plastic dipping bird that now bobbed there ad infinitum.

127. If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.

128. If my film makes one more person feel miserable, I'll feel like I've done my job.

130. Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.

141. 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.

146. In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

147. With the possible exception of What's Up, Tiger Lily (1966), the schlocky Japanese spy movie to which he attached his own, sidesplitting English soundtrack, no Woody Allen movie has ever been more or less serious than another of his works. He's always been serious. It's the audiences who have been frivolous. In Zelig he reassures us that he can still be funny and moving without making the sort of insistent filmic references in which he delights but which can be infuriating to others. Zelig is a nearly perfect - and perfectly original - Woody Allen comedy.