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A lot of your personality is formed before you're 12, obviously, but only a few of my plays use characters from my childhood. The more mature plays are affected only by my adult experiences.

Neil Simon

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Neil Simon
Age: 91 †
Born: 1927
Born: July 4
Died: 2018
Died: August 26
Entrepreneur
Film Producer
Librettist
Lyricist
Playwright
Screenwriter
New York City
New York
Marvin Neil Simon
Play
Obviously
Experiences
Adults
Childhood
Formed
Characters
Mature
Personality
Adult
Use
Affected
Character
Plays

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Sports is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending.
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If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.
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The first book was my first attempt at writing full-length prose.
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I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.
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Sudden money is going from zero to two hundred dollars a week. The rest doesn't count.
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All humor is based on hostility - that's why World War Two was funny.
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Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we'll get some fluid and embalm each other.
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Standing on a ledge again. Everyone laughs at dancing monkey with the typewriter. Not for long, though.
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I much prefer writing an original movie with the screen in mind to transferring a play to the screen.
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I don't like dating or just living with a woman. I like to create a relationship, a marriage. And almost all of my marriages have involved children, so I'm really a family man as well.
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Rewriting is when writing really gets to be fun. . . . In baseball you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball.
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Talent is the gift plus the passion - a desire to succeed so intense that no force on earth can stop it.
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I don't want to restrict the life of a play to a particular production. The original actors might leave after the first six months, and I want the play to last 30 or 40 years. You write for the character, not the actor on the stage.
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I never write a play with an eye to film.
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Evan Handler's new book is simply wonderful. He pulls you inside his life, and you come out his very close friend.
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It looks different when you're sober I thought I had twice as much furniture.
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If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
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