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Films are big hits when they touch a lot of people. Things are not funny in a vacuum, they're funny because we respond to some personal dislocation, some embarrassment, some humiliation, some pain we've suffered, or some desire we have.

Harold Ramis

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Harold Ramis
Age: 69 †
Born: 1944
Born: November 21
Died: 2014
Died: February 24
Actor
Comedian
Director
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Harold Allen Ramis
People
Films
Vacuums
Personal
Vacuum
Funny
Embarrassment
Bigs
Humiliation
Pain
Hits
Desire
Suffered
Film
Respond
Things
Touch
Dislocation

More quotes by Harold Ramis

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Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.
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If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.
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Most comedy is not very ambitious. You probably can't name more than a handful of comedies that would qualify for Best Picture.
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We all wish we could be in more than one place at the same time. People with families feel guilty all the time-if we spend too much time with our family, we feel we're not working hard enough.
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I'm a writer-director-actor, which I've always kind of enjoyed. I compared it to the Olympic biathlon. Not only can he cross-country ski, but he's a terrific marksman as well. I want people to say, You mean that writer performed a tracheotomy? That's right, I do everything.
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Analyze This is a good movie because Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are really good. But without the material to put on the play, of course, they couldn't be good. For me, it starts with the writing.
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No one will laugh at how great things are for somebody.
Harold Ramis
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For me, most comedy scripts fail in the mechanical playing-out of the setup. They'll pay lip service to a moral lesson or a psychological progression.
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It's like the old rule-if you introduce a gun into the first act of a play, it's going to be used in the third act. So if you do a movie about criminals, you have to accept there's going to be Some action.
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Life doesn't care about your vision. You just gotta roll with it.
Harold Ramis
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The trick with sequels is, you have to give people what they liked before, yet be innovative enough so they don't feel like they're seeing the same movie.
Harold Ramis
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I can't imagine a successful comedy movie without a successful comedy performance at the heart of it.
Harold Ramis
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Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn't really accomplish anything.
Harold Ramis
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I collect spores, molds, and fungus.
Harold Ramis
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I'm thinking of doing a marital comedy for one of the studios, but I want it to be so painful that it'll have a profound effect on married couples who see it together.
Harold Ramis
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As much as I liked acting for its playfulness and the reward of hearing big laughs wash over you on a stage, I always felt I should do something that I could control.
Harold Ramis
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No matter what I have to say, I'm still trying to say it in comedic form.
Harold Ramis
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Comedy is essentially made by young men, or older men with some form of arrested development, for young men or immature older men.
Harold Ramis
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First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?
Harold Ramis
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Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
Harold Ramis