Albert Brooks Quotes

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

I come from the place where I am thinking 'I have put my blood on the pages.'

I don't want to get close to people who have secrets that I don't know about.

Being a screenwriter in Hollywood is like being a eunuch at an orgy. Worse, actually, at least the eunuch is allowed to watch.

Starting to drink now in preparation for New Years. No more last minute stuff like Christmas.

I like movies about failing.

I'm not Elvis. I don't get chased by paparazzi.

If I'm going to act in someone's movie, I want the movie to be interesting and be able to get a couple of solid doubles.

'Drive' came to me because the casting director knew my manager and called and said, 'You've always talked to me about Albert wanting to play the heavy. I think he should read this.' My ears just perked up.

I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.

Acceptance is going to a restaurant where the salad's not great, but the steak is fine.

What's interesting about books that take place in the future, even twenty years in the future, is that many of them are black or white: It's either a utopia or it's misery. The real truth is that there's going to be both things in any future, just like there is now.

I've always been in the middle of making my own movies, so taking acting jobs that take me away from that has been impossible.

I've always felt like I work in a small little area that doesn't represent anything like the rest of society.

If you paint, write, do mosaics, knit - if it's solving that part of your brain saying, 'I need to do this,' you've won.

If we had 3 million exhibitionists and only one voyeur, nobody could make any money.

It's interesting when you're part of a group - the Jews, to be exact - that the world has had such problems with.

I'm a member of the Academy, but I don't know who all the other Academy members are. It's not like a politician who knows who is in the Iowa caucus.

Be generous and you can be the best person who ever lived.

Twitter, to me, works if you're funny. Twitter doesn't work as a promotional tool unless you do it very, very, very occasionally.

I've always been the king of silence. I've always been a minimalist comedian. I've taken my influence from Jack Benny, who was the king of that I've always done 'less is more.'

I'm not a person who I ever thought would do well with divorce. Not that it can't happen. I just didn't want that. So I waited a long time to meet the right person. Then I finally met someone that I was willing to be divorced from.

Excited about Black Friday. Also excited about Jew Tuesday.

I don't know that I can define fear. But one of the sources of fear is holding up some sort of model life that doesn't exist and feeling like you're far away from it.

I got so good at writing to a budget, my brain was restricting myself. I'd write, "It's a stormy night." Then I'd cross out stormy. I'd write: "It's a calm night." Then I'd cross out night. It's noon. Because you know how much night costs. You know how much rain costs. Nothing comes free in movies.

I, sort of, got into comedy accidentally, and it got bigger than I wanted it to.

My friend Harry Nilsson used to say the definition of an artist was someone who rode way ahead of the herd and was sort of the lookout. Now you don't have to be that, to be an artist. You can be right smack-dab in the middle of the herd. If you are, you'll be the richest.

You know, I became a director out of necessity. I was writing comedies, and I couldn't find anybody to deliver it correctly.

Steven Spielberg seems to have wanted to be a director from 13. He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock. He liked to direct it. But, to me, directing is tedious. Especially if you're acting in it. And I'm inherently lazy.

The biggest waste of brainpower is to want to change something that's not changeable.

There's always the standard six people you can hire that have played all these villains in Hollywood. Instinctively, when they come on screen, you know what's going to happen. You don't know the story, but you know what they do.

If you look at the best-seller list for American fiction, they're all sequels to detective stories or stories about hunting serial killers. That's what's called American fiction these days.

Your spouse should be just attractive enough to turn you on. Anything more is trouble.

So I think if you're happy with your brain, you're powerful.

Bullfights are hugely popular because you can sit comfortably with a hot dog and possibly watch a man die. It wont be me, but I can sit comfortably and watch it.

In my screenplays - from the very beginning I've always used tape. I talk my screenplays. And then have somebody transcribe them.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

I've always liked to think ahead. Not stupid-far ahead. A hundred years doesn't interest me. But 20 years interests me, and more for what happens to humans as opposed to things.

For the most part, improvising while cameras are rolling is very difficult. 99% of people you should never ask to do that, because they're under pressure, the clock is running, 80 people are staring at you...it's always unnatural.

If you're going to act and do this for a living, you want to play something that the audience didn't expect.

I cast unusual people in my movies.

In the course of my movies, the financing and the releasing were always the tough part. Because I loved the creative, I loved the writing, I loved the making of it. Because I guess, I never had the giant blockbuster, I never got that sort of ease for the next one. So the next one was always, "how am I going to do this?" And that thing was sort of always the thing that made me a little chickenshit to go into the next one. The writing of it was great and the making of it was great, but how am I going to release this thing and am I going to find a studio?

You know, when cameras are rolling, improvisation doesn't feel natural. The pressure is too great. You're on a time schedule. You've got 60 crewmen.

I don't experience basic human emotions. It's not my thing.

Twitter is the Devil's playground.

When I audition, I understand what it takes and the insecurities that come with it. If I do anything, I put actors at ease. I used to tell directors who weren't actors, the best thing they could do was take an acting class for a couple of months. Just to understand.

You make friends with older people and you always feel young no matter what.

I'm a big consumer of news and I have my six newspaper sites booked. And what I like bout Twitter is it's almost, it allows me to make a comment about something that's just on my mind.