Yes. The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.

It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who like themselves - I don't want to see them!

I love the editing process of making movies. I just wish that life had one.

Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that's when I get worried.

No doubt you are as alarmed as I by the tragic decline in America's language skills. If 10 people read the following sentence: Two tanker trucks has just overturned in Alaska, spilling a totel of 10,000 gallons of beer onto a highway. two would find an error in subject-verb agreement, two would find an error in spelling, and six would find a sponge and drive north.

Jewish introspection and Jewish humor is a way of surviving . . . if you're not handsome and you're not athletic and you're not rich, there's still one last hope with girls, which is being funny.

Directing is mystifying. It's a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay on the road... If you're still here when you come out of the spin, it's a relief. But you've got to have the terror if you're going to do anything worthwhile.