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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.

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
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Six
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It's always painful when you're writing memoirs because you've got to go through the dark places, but it gives you a chance to find out the person you really are, not the person you thought you were.
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I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.
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I never write a play with an eye to film.
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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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There's no such thing as a sure thing. That's why they call it gambling.
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I feel like writing about a time when I was probably, and think all of us are, the happiest before the obligations start in.
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The first book was my first attempt at writing full-length prose.
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If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
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All humor is based on hostility - that's why World War Two was funny.
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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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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.
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You get attached to the way you write, and I'm attached to notebooks. That's where I really write the plays. Just two or three pages at a time, then I transfer to the typewriter and rewrite while I type.
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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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Standing on a ledge again. Everyone laughs at dancing monkey with the typewriter. Not for long, though.
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If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.
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Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we'll get some fluid and embalm each other.
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He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie.
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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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It looks different when you're sober I thought I had twice as much furniture.
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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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