Comedy is serious - deadly serious. Never, never try to be funny! The actors must be serious. Only the situation must be absurd. Funny is in the writing, not in the performing. If the situation isn't absurd, no amount of joke will help.

I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.

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

There's a lot of things that I've done to stick into the box set. You never have it this good. I think people should bargain. They shouldn't just buy the set, it's a little expensive [anyway]. But they should say - I'll give them dialogue, I'm a good writer.

Basically, I'm a writer. I'm the proprietor of the vision. I alone know what I eventually want to happen on the screen. So if you have a valuable idea, the only way to protect it is to direct it.

One day, God said 'Let there be prey.' And he created pigeons, rabbits, lambs and Gene Wilder.

My mother is very short - four-eleven. She could walk under tables and never hit her head.