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I love [Nikolai] Gogol's great eye for idiot behavior. Gogol said that life is so tragic, so stupendously sad that we'd better laugh a lot and enjoy ourselves. You either get a sense of humor going or you go under.

Mel Brooks

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Mel Brooks
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: June 28
Actor
Composer
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Journalist
Librettist
Lyricist
Screenwriter
Soldier
Songwriter
Stage Actor
Brooklyn
New York
Melvin Brooks
Melvin Kaminsky
Enjoy
Tragic
Sense
Idiot
Better
Laugh
Great
Behavior
Going
Laughing
Love
Humor
Life
Either
Eye
Gogol

More quotes by Mel Brooks

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Be interested in everything. You don't have to adore it. I don't adore hip-hop, I don't think it's great music, but I'm interested, I listen. I watch a lot of new films, I see everything. I still read, I like books, whether they are old books, new books. I'm interested - you gotta stay interested!
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Coleman Jacoby and Arnie Rosen won an Emmy and Mel Brooks didn't! Niezsche was right! There is no God! There is no God!
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Cat angels are the reason there are no mice angels.
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It would be hypocritical of me to take issue with anything in questionable taste, seeing that I invented bad taste in films.
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When you get big special effects pictures, sci-fi and things, there's little or no comedy. Or it's a domestic comedy and there's not one special effect. But very rarely do these things fuse and come out right.
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I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.
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He who hesitates is poor.
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American sex is generally straight. It happens at 11 o'clock Saturday night. In the rural areas, it happens at nine and it happens pretty fast. Got to get up the next morning, especially if there're kids. Can't make noise, either, wake the kids.
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My God, I'd love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, 'Well done, you god-damn genius.'
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Good taste is the enemy of comedy.
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If Ivan the Terrible had been kissed and loved between zero and three, he probably would have become Ivan Not So Terrible. If you're Jewish, you have a small smile on your face. Because you know the rest are wrong and you don't want to hurt their feelings.
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There's an army story in me, and I think there's a WWII Brooks film somewhere.
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Immortality is a by-product of good work. Masterpieces are not for artists, they're for critics. Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together. My message to the world is 'Let's swing, sing, shout, make noise! Let's not mimic death before our time comes! Let's be wet and noisy!'
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THE 2,000-YEAR-OLD MAN'S SECRETS OF LONGEVITY 1. Don't run for a bus - there'll always be another. 2. Never, ever touch fried food. 3. Stay out of a Ferrari or any other small Italian car. 4. Eat fruit - a nectarine - even a rotten plum is good.
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Judd Apatow is pretty good, both as a producer and as a director.
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Directing is a terrible, anxious process. It's all collaboration, and if you have a dream, it's diluted very quickly by the slightest ineptness in any of your collaborators. They're supposed to help you, but too often they help you into your grave.
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Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
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I wanted to entertain so badly that I kept at it until I was good. I just browbeat my way into show business.
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I love gentiles. In fact, on of my favorite activities is Protestant spotting.
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If you're alive, make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death.
Mel Brooks