23 Woody Allen Quotes on Life

Woody Allen quotes on life

6. Millions of books written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds and in the end, none of them knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do ... I read Socrates. This guy knocked off little Greek boys. What the Hell's he got to teach me? And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we lived we're gonna live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It's not worth it. And Freud, another great pessimist. I was in analysis for years and nothing happened. My poor analyst got so frustrated, the guy finally put in a salad bar. Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.

13. I have no apprehension whatsoever. I've been through this so many times. And I found that one way or the other, your life doesn't change at all. Which is sad, in a way. Because the people love your film... nothing great happens. And people hate your film... nothing terrible happens. Many years ago, I would... I would... a film of mine would open, and it would get great reviews, and I would go down and look at the movie theater. There'd be a line around the block. And when a film is reviled, you open a film and people say 'Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie.' You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say 'Oh, they hated your film.' You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares. They're not interested. They've got their own lives, and their own problems, and their own shadows on their lungs, and their x-rays. And, you know, they've got their own stuff they're dealing with.... So, I'm just never nervous about it.

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

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

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.

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?

56. Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. The horrible are the cancer patients and the terminal cases... the miserable is everyone else. So, be thankful that you're miserable.

57. There's an old joke... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, 'Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.' The other one says, 'Yeah, I know; and such small portions.' Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness - and it's all over much too quickly.

61. Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage.

89. A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight.

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.

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

120. I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.

126. If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse

129. It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better ... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

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

131. Life is like a concentration camp... you can't leave without dying.

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

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?