Any man's greatness is a tribute to the nobility of all mankind, so when we celebrate the genius of [Leo] Tolstoy, we say, "Look! One of our boys made it! Look what we're capable of!"
Mel BrooksI try to give my work everything I've got, because when you're dead or you're out of the business or you're in an old actors' home somewhere, if you've done a good job, your work will still be 16 years old and dancing and healthy and pirouetting and arabesquing all over the place. And they'll say, "That's who he is! He's not this decaying skeleton."
Mel BrooksThe brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character.
Mel BrooksI realised that all one really had to do was just observe. Observe and slightly exaggerate, and you had comedy. Instead of creating a mythical premise for a stupid joke, I found playing off truth got the best result.
Mel Brooks