I was adored [as a kid]. I was always in the air, hurled up and kissed and thrown in the air again. Until I was six, my feet didn't touch the ground. "Look at those eyes! That nose! Those lips! That tooth! Get that child away from me, quick! I'll eat him!" Giving that up was very difficult later on in life.

Organizations like the CIA and the FBI are still kind of supermen, kind of SS troops: We're blond and the best and everyone else should be incinerated. They don't know right from wrong. That's what makes a satire of these government bureaus really funny.

I've always loved songwriting, and I vowed to be a songwriter like Cole Porter when I was only 9 years old.

I also try to surround myself with people I love - make a family out of the company. So I tend to use the same people over and over. There's a sort of Mel Brooks Repertory Company.

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

I love [Nikolai] Gogol's great eye for idiot behavior. Gogol said that life is so tragic, so stupendously sad that we'd better laugh a lot and enjoy ourselves. You either get a sense of humor going or you go under.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.