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

All short women have a delayed fuse. Marry a taller woman: My wife was an inch or two taller than me; it's a sign of security.

I love gentiles. In fact, on of my favorite activities is Protestant spotting.

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

You want to be as smart as you can about being stupid.

I 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."

My movies were not reaping the kind of emotional rewards that I wanted. I wanted them to be appreciated and they weren't. I didn't want the reviews to say, "Mel Brooks has made another movie," and you get the title somewhere in the second paragraph.