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I've never taken a script to the stage or to principal photography and said, This is perfect. This is as good as it can possibly be. It's not Shakespeare, you know you know it can probably be better.

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
Never
Scripts
Photography
Stage
Probably
Taken
Shakespeare
Perfect
Principal
Better
Script
Good
Possibly

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I loved writing and performing, but the idea of doing it for a living seemed so remote. But I eventually let it devolve to the point where it was the only thing I could do.
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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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If Chevy Chase had not been an actor, he might have been a very popular guy in advertising or whatever field he would have gone into, because of his charisma.
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Where's the great pay? Where's the travel? Where's the Winnebago, Goddamnit!
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Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
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I have no trouble selling out—I’m a benevolent hack, in a certain way—but I want to pander for something I believe in.
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You can't not have feelings about country clubs, whichever side you're on.
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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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I've always thought that comedy was just another dramatic expression.
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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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Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
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I think satire is a luxury of literate middle-class people. People who are well fed and relatively secure in their beds can laugh at their troubles. They can enjoy sitcoms. For those who aren't quite so lucky, well, the irony might be lost on them.
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Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.
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I did a comedy with Al Franken about his character Stuart Smalley, which was really about alcoholism and addiction and codependency. It had some painful stuff in it. When we showed it to focus groups, some of them actually said, If I want to see a dysfunctional family, I'll stay home.
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Groundhog Day was pretty clean. It may have to do with some puritanical feeling that comedy is a forbidden pleasure in a certain way. They make you laugh, and laughter is somehow an inferior emotion to tragedy.
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Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
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I realized that my righteous indignation was a form of entertainment for me. I loved getting pissed off at injustice. I didn't do anything about it, I just liked the feeling of being pissed off.
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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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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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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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