Quotes by Mel Brooks

• We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody.
• We rest our case on the production numbers.
• Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.
• 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.
• 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.
• Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive.
• Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.
• If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.
• You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself.
• If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
• I only direct in self-defense.
• I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.
• Humor is just another defense against the universe.
• Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.
• Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
• As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.
• Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.
• He who hesitates is poor.
• If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.