Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together.

In every spoof I make real love to the things I am spoofing.

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!"

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.

American sex is generally straight. It happens at 11 o'clock Saturday night. In the rural areas, it happens at nine and it happens pretty fast. Got to get up the next morning, especially if there're kids. Can't make noise, either, wake the kids.

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.