I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window.

I found a very diabolical way of making myself suffer - not in the same way [my mother ] was suffering but to prevent me from enjoying my own life.

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

In fact, [Gene Wilder] had made a hysteric seem considerably less funny in his film debut as a terrified undertaker in "Bonnie And Clyde." And neurotics soon became his stock-in-trade, whether he was playing the weird title character in "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory..."

I don't mean to sound - I don't want it to come out funny, but I don't like show business. I love - I love acting in films. I love it.

I met Mel [Brooks] backstage in Anne's [Bancroft] dressing room. He was wearing one of those pea coats, pea jackets that were made famous by the Merchant Marines, and I admired it and he said, "You know, they used to call this a urine jacket, but it didn't sell."

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.