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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.

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
Best
Comedies
Would
Handful
Ambitious
Picture
Comedy
Name
Probably
Names
Qualify

More quotes by Harold Ramis

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I have tons of rescuing fantasies based on the movies I saw when I was growing up. I wanted to be Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers and the Scarlet Pimpernel.
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We tell our kids that policemen are good and God protects us and our country is noble, and at a certain point - and for some it comes quite early, five or six years old - we start to realize that it's all a facade.
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When you're young and you first see the extent and depth of the world's hypocrisy, it's fun to go after it. But by the time you're sixty, it's so commonplace. What's the point in ridiculing people anymore? Their existence itself is a sort of sick joke.
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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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My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.
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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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The cutting room is where you discover the optimal length of the movie.
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Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.
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I'd rather do comedies that strike at some bigger ideas.
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When I've written for Bill Murray - I've written six films for him - people would read it and say, Oh, that's so perfectly Bill. He'd read it and say, Are you kidding? I can't say these words. So it's all about perception.
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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 collect spores, molds, and fungus.
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Find the most talented person in the room and if it's not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. try to be helpful.
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When you're a big enough part of the process that the Writers Guild gives you a lot of credit, that's a good thing. It tells me that I've had a significant impact on the film as a writer.
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Where's the great pay? Where's the travel? Where's the Winnebago, Goddamnit!
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At a certain point, you have to convince the actors that you've done the right thing. The way I work, if I can't convince them, I've got to move on. I can't coerce them or browbeat them.
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Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it.
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I always think that the writer is doing the vast majority of the director's work, in a sense. If you're a writer who is also going to direct, you're doing all your preparation: You're already visualizing everything, you're imagining how the lines are going to be read, you see the blocking in your head, and you know the rhythm and the pacing.
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I was the little guy who knew how to tie a necktie. It came from having absentee parents. They were tremendously loving and caring people who, by circumstance, had to go to work.
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Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
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