Woody Allen is a genius. His films are wonderful. He's poetic, but he's also a critic. He artfully steps back from a social setting and criticizes it without - I suspect - without letting himself be vulnerable to it.

I wanted to entertain so badly that I kept at it until I was good. I just browbeat my way into show business.

Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you've gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.

I had low blood sugar, a chemical imbalance, plus the normal nervous breakdown everyone goes through from adolescence to adulthood.

Look at Jewish history. Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So for every ten Jews beating their breasts, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.

We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody.

Woody Allen is a genius. His films are wonderful. He's poetic, but he's also a critic. He artfully steps back from a social setting and criticizes it without - I suspect - without letting himself be vulnerable to it.