Mel Brooks Speaks

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.
Mel Brooks

Anybody can direct. There are only 11 good writers.
Mel Brooks

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.
Mel Brooks

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
Mel Brooks

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.
Mel Brooks

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.
Mel Brooks

He who hesitates is poor.
Mel Brooks

Humor is just another defense against the universe.
Mel Brooks

I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.
Mel Brooks

I only direct in self-defense.
Mel Brooks

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
Mel Brooks

If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
Mel Brooks

If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.
Mel Brooks

If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.
Mel Brooks

Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.
Mel Brooks

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.
Mel Brooks

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.
Mel Brooks

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.
Mel Brooks

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
Mel Brooks

We rest our case on the production numbers.
Mel Brooks

We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody.
Mel Brooks

You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself.
Mel Brooks