And Mel [Brooks] - you have to understand this important point - he had done "The Producers" for $50,000 over two years, and he didn't make a penny from it. And then he did "The Twelve Chairs" - $50,000 for two more years and didn't make a penny from it. That's four years of work. And then they offered him quite a bit of money to direct "Young Frankenstein," and he took it.

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.This was said by gene wilder ... what does it mean ?

With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during "Young Frankenstein" - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple

There wasn't a funeral per se. I buried [Gilda Radner] 3 miles from her house that she had bought just shortly before we met. It was an old house, old colonial house, 1734. And there were just a few friends at the funeral, a nonsectarian cemetery. And an old friend of hers from junior high school or high school was the rabbi in town, and he performed the service.

Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do - sing, dance, joke about - then they take that as love.

I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this.