The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House.

It's a great luxury for me to be able to write on the films that I direct, and kind of a nice thing to be able to write enough to get credit, which is difficult for a director.

Well, for me, it's the relationship between comedy and life - that's the edge I live on, and maybe it's my protection against looking at the tragedy of it all. It's seeing life in balance. Comedy and tragedy co-exist. You can't have one without the other. I'm of the school that anything can be funny, if seen from a comedic point of view.

Whatever bliss we think we're going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There's an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling.

I've never taken a script to the stage or to principal photography and said, "This is perfect. This is as good as it can possibly be." It's not Shakespeare, you know; you know it can probably be better.

When someone's an actor and you're an actor, you meet them and you feel like you know them. We're in the same business, and we all speak the same comedy language.

With both Caddyshack and Vacation, it's not like the subjects were serious enough that they engaged my interest for another round. I love the characters, and the actors were great, but I didn't see the need to make another Vacation movie.