78 Woody Allen Quotes on Humor

Woody Allen quotes on humor

1. Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!

2. I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.

3. Allen: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it? Woman: Yes, it is. Allen: What does it say to you? Woman: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos. Allen: What are you doing Saturday night? Woman: Committing suicide. Allen: What about Friday night?

16. I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

19. Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it.

20. Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.

21. My brain: it's my second favorite organ.

22. Oh, he was probably a member of the National Rifle Association. It was a group that helped criminals get guns so they could shoot citizens. It was a public service.

23. I'm not really the heroic type. I was beat up by Quakers.

24. Sex and death are two things that come but once in my lifetime, but at least after death you're not nauseous.

25. [After discovering that they are trying to clone 'the leader' from his only nose] Now is the time to strike. The Leader is at great handicap, he has no head or body!

28. The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter... if it turns about that there is a God, I don't think that he is evil. I think that the worst thing you could say is that he is, basically, an under-achiever.

29. After all, there are worse things in life than death. If you've ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman, you know what I'm talking about.

30. The key is, to not think of death as an end, but as more of a very effective way to cut down on your expenses.

32. Where did you go to finishing school? On a pirate ship?

35. Countess: You are a great lover! Boris: I practice a lot when I'm alone.

39. Boris: Nothingness. Non-existence. Black emptiness. Sonja: What did you say? Boris: Oh, I was just planning my future.

40. Boris: (a) Socrates is a man.(b) All men are mortal.(c) All men are Socrates. That means all men are homosexuals. I'm not a homosexual. Once, some Cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions.

41. Boris: Then there is a God. Incredible. Moses was right. [a ray of light shines over Boris] He that abideth in truth will have frankincense and myrrh smeared on his gums in abundance, and he shall dwell in the house of the Lord for six months with an option to buy. But the wicked man shall have all kinds of problems. His tongue shall cleave to the roof of his upper palate. And he shall speak like a woman, if you watch him closely. And he shall... The wicked man shall be delivered into the hands of his enemy, whether they can pay the delivery charge or not. And... [ray of light turns off] Wait, I have more about the wicked man. [turns on again] I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death... In fact, now that I think of it, I shall run through the valley of the shadow of death, cos' you get out of the valley quicker that way. And he that hath clean hands and a pure heart is OK in my book. But he that fools around with barnyard animals has got to be watched.

42. Boris: I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If he was a carpenter, I wondered what he charged for bookshelves.

43. Boris: If it turns out that there IS a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.

45. As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree'-probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

48. What a wonderful thing, to be conscious! I wonder what the people in New Jersey do.

54. What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?

55. Don't knock masturbation - it's sex with someone I love.

58. The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's 'Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious', and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, 'I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.' That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

59. I thought of that old joke: This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well why don't you turn him in?' and the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.

60. This is so antiseptic. It's empty. Why do you think this is funny? You're going by audience reaction? This is an audience that's raised on television, their standards have been systematically lowered over the years. These guys sit in front of their sets and the gamma rays eat the white cells of their brains out!

62. I think that people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics.

64. She's 17. I'm 42 and she's 17. I'm older than her father, can you believe that? I'm dating a girl, wherein, I can beat up her father.

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

70. Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought - particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.

72. Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates. Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around a Swedish airline stewardess and some handcuffs.

74. 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.

75. Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. Socrates: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, 'Everybody up, it's morning,' it's very hard to find your slippers.

76. My love life is terrible. The last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.

77. Where I grew up... in Brooklyn, nobody committed suicide... you know, everyone was too unhappy.

78. Taste my tuna casserole - tell me if I put in too much hot fudge.

79. What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!

80. I bought her this handkerchief... and I didn't even know her size.

81. I worked with Freud in Vienna. We broke over the concept of penis envy. He thought it should be limited to women.

83. ...years of insanity have made this guy crazy!

84. Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning.

85. You think the President of the united states wants to fuck every woman he meets?... Well, bad example.

86. No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.

88. [On being called a self-hating Jew] Hey, I may hate myself, but not because I'm Jewish.

90. I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic.

91. A fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said 'no.'

92. Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.

93. I was in analysis. I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss.

94. I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

96. I'm not a drinker - my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba.

97. When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.

99. And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?

103. As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness.

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.

105. Bidnick gorges himself on Viagra, but the dosage makes him hallucinate and causes him to imagine he is Pliny the Elder.

106. To a man standing on the shore, time passes quicker than to a man on a boat - especially if the man on the boat is with his wife.

107. Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.

109. Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

111. Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.

113. How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?

114. How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?

116. I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.

121. I idolized Superman when I was younger. I thought he and I had a lot in common. He was always going into phonebooths and taking off all his clothes.

123. I prefer masturbation. You meet a better class of people that way.

124. I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

132. Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions.

133. Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.

134. My luck is getting worse and worse. Last night, for instance, I was mugged by a Quaker.

136. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.

138. Sex is only dirty if it's done right.

139. Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.

140. The government is unresponsive to the needs of the little man. Under 5' 7', it is impossible to get your congressman on the phone.

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.

142. There's more to life than sitting around in the sun in your underwear playing the clarinet.

144. Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

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.