Quote

I like people with big talents and small neuroses - not always an easy combination to find. I've discovered that if the neurosis is too big, it diminishes the talent and you wind up working too hard for what you get.

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
Working
Neurosis
Bigs
Diminish
Easy
Talents
Find
Discovered
Hard
Combination
Always
Wind
Like
Talent
Neuroses
People
Small
Diminishes

More quotes by Mel Brooks

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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.
Mel Brooks
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No creative writer knows what is commercial and what isn't. You just write from your heart, you write from the deepest, creative urges in you, and you write from your soul, and you just either get lucky or not.
Mel Brooks
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I'm still a horse that can run. I may not be able to win the Derby, but what do you do when you retire? People retire and they vegetate. They go away and they dry up.
Mel Brooks
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If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
Mel Brooks
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When we got to our hotel rooms, mosquitoes as big as George Foreman were waiting for us. They were sitting in armchairs with their legs crossed.
Mel Brooks
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Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.
Mel Brooks
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Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive.
Mel Brooks
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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.
Mel Brooks
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Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.
Mel Brooks
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Well, you know, 'Spaceballs' is a weird combination, because it's a simple, sweet little fairytale, and it's crazy and out-there and making fun of and taking apart sci-fi, 'Star Wars', and 'Star Trek'.
Mel Brooks
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My brothers went to work at 12 and put themselves through school and brought the family out of ruin into food and clothing.
Mel Brooks
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That's it baby, if you've got it, flaunt it.
Mel Brooks
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Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together.
Mel Brooks
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I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.
Mel Brooks
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The thing is to be brave and move the audience with you, instead of cater to the lowest common denominator, you know, slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass. You got to move the audience a little further ahead in terms of their appreciation of what is comedy. It's complicated.
Mel Brooks
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Immortality is a by-product of good work.
Mel Brooks
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If you're alive, make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death.
Mel Brooks
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I don't think in terms of results at all. I think: what next insanity can I shock the world with?
Mel Brooks
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The audience. They see the name Mel Brooks, they want something really funny. They don't want to be moved they don't want to be taught any lessons. [...] I get more letters for Twelve Chairs and Life Stinks than I get from any other movies, because people actually agree with the philosophy, or were moved, or they love the movie.
Mel Brooks
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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.
Mel Brooks