text:
Talk:Anonymous

I don't know how to edit the main page, so you can do it for me!
"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies." Was said in Harry Potter by one of the Weasley twins :)

That's very old. At least as old as the old playground rhyme "Miss Lucy Had a Steamboat."

Quote of the day: If life was a book, I would rather write it with a pencil, than a permanent marker.

YES WHY IS THIS PAGE LOCKED? THAT IS FOOLISH! THERE ARE SOME QUOTES THAT MUST BE REMOVED!

Categorization of quotes beginning with "A ...".
I would categorize those quotes by their second word. I forgot when I have seen this done in a quotes book, but I can offer as evidence that library techniques follow this rule.

Anonymous or not?
I believe the "give a man a fire..." one is attributed to Terry Pratchett, but an Altavista search for "light a man on fire" AND "Terry Pratchett" only turned up 5 results. Worse still, there are no fewer than three different versions attributed to him. I have a feeling that a lot of Wikiquote is going to be like this... Paullusmagnus 22:19 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * For the record, the canonical form is "Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.", and it's from the novel Jingo. (Source) —Paul A 02:21, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"In 1945, peace broke out" is from Monty Python's The Funniest Joke in the World sketch.

Voe to defeated
Anyone have any idea what "Voe to defeated" means? Nanobug 01:45, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It probably means "Woe to the vanquished!" from the Latin, but it is incorrectly spelt...

No, "voe" is the first-person singular present subjunctive of voar, and not a lot of people know that.

Usefulness of the Anonymous page
Unfortunately, a lot of these aren't even quotations, in the usual sense. They're bumper stickers and buttons and "laws", repeated later as taglines and .sig files. They are anonymous in the least useful sense of the word. -- Michael K. Smith 21:13, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * The usefulness of this page is diminishing as it grows, with many trivial additions and variants accumulating on a very broad range of subjects. Ultimately more things have been said anonymously or without attribution, than by all the most famous and notable people combined. I think that it is probably best to simply add most anonymous quotes to the pages of themes that they address, where people have the option of identifying any sources that they believe to be correct. Though the Anonymous page was once suggested as a place for the posting of quotations of non-famous Wikiquote users, or their acquaintances, I think that User pages or talk pages should be used for that, and sources freely identified, or not, in accord with the contributor's wishes. ~ Kalki 08:29, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if at some time it may be a good idea to see a real “Anonymous Quotes” page put on Wikiquote’s Main Page, one of the likes of those found in most major quotation books? I feel this is lacking here at the moment, as, as far as I can see, half the quotes on this present page are popular saws and sayings, which have no specific source or author, and the other half have been made up for the occasion by anonymous humorists (probably at some time during the 20th Century); however, I have no clear idea as to which is which. I suggest that at some time a traditional “Anonymous” page be created on Wikiquote, when it is felt appropriate to do so by the administrators. And subsequently a new “Unknown Authors” or “Popular sayings” page be created for such remarks as are mostly found here now; one which can then be edited in the proper manner, and as required, as a page most suitable to the generally “spurious nature” of this sort of anonymous material. ~ Wise Raven June 2009

 * Ideally, notable anonymous quotes should have citations of notable sources that quote them. When cited, they would best be moved to appropriate theme articles. Articles on notable works of unknown authorship (e.g. Havelok the Dane) are also appropriate.
 * As Kalki notes above, anonymousness is a hopelessly overbroad criterion for the scope of an article. Yet, as noted by Ghostalker below, this page is not without usefulness. At best, it may be regarded as an extension of the Reference desk: a list of things for which it would be nice to find sources. At worst, it serves as a magnet to draw bogus postings ("bogons," as Neal Stephenson calls them [ Anathem (2008) p. 796; cf. pp. 406–407, 795] ) away from real articles. ~ Ningauble 16:44, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

--- I find this page to be very useful, it acts as a buffer so the other archives don't get filled up with crap. Plus users who have nothing better to do can search down where these quotes belong, not to mention those users who recognize certain quotes and put them where they belong. I'd rather have a place for people to dump unknown quotes, then have them fill up the organized spots.

~ Ghostalker 04:24, 21 Oct 2004 (EST)

In the nursery rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty' where does it say that he's an egg?
Humpty Dumpty is in various "poems" from Fritzgerald Herring ( not spelt how i did) in the earlier rhyms it was allready established that he was an egg…

…however the final part of the rhyme is the bit that was remembered…

Stalin/Manson/Red Alert quote
If no one complains, I'm going to redo the two notes below the (paraphrased) "Kill one man, it's a tragedy and an outrage; kill 20,000, it's a statistic" stating that 1) It may be a paraphrase from Fight Song by Marilyn Manson and 2)That it was a quote from the Red Alert game, which preceded that song. It seems they both are trying to pin the originator of this phrase within the modern realm, where the original submission attributes it to Joseph Stalin, which predates both significantly. I plan to just generalize those into 1) It was in the song and 2) it was in the game. Anyone disagree? --131.7.251.200 20:47, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The quote needs to be removed, as it is not an anonymous quote! Stalin is well known for saying this after the death of his wife. If Stalin said it first its not anonymous nor does it have anything to do with Marilyn Manson or Red Alert 2! If someone has a problem with me removing this can they please give legitimate reasons why, as when I did so earlier, the change was reversed. 14.47 19th May 2005

Honestly, did someone try to reverse that?

Bus stops and train stops
''A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops.''

What's this supposed to mean?

To the comment above: A bus stops at a bus station. A train stops at a train station. Thus, work stops at a workstation.

Quotation Placement
I would suggest going to http://www.quotationspage.com/ to find the origins

Nathaniel Zhou

Known Quotes
"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong

(Already on page on Erica Jong, simply removed from here.)

"Expect the best. Prepare for the worst." - Zig Ziglar [source]

(Added to existing page on Zig Ziglar, removed from here.)

"History is just one bloody thing after another." - line spoken by character Rudge in The History Boys, a play by Alan Bennett

(Not added to or removed from any page)

T-Shirts and Bumper Stickers
Perhaps a seperate page should be started for quotes which are known to come from t-shirts or bumper stickers and nowhere else, simply to help with the clutter on this page. As it stands, little quips like that will basically sit on this page forever.

Comments?

24.72.67.210 04:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)--

 * Aye, that is an entirely good suggestion. This page seems to currently be more of a storage area than a sorting station. Any ideas on what to call that sort of page? 66.220.96.128 06:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous quote
Truth is universal.

Removing unnotable, unsourceable quotes
This article is being used as a dumping ground for anything that someone thinks is witty, regardless of how well-known the quote is. I would suggest that this is not what this article should be used for. Wikiquote collects notable quotes. The notability usually comes from the quotee (backed up by wiki-reliable sources). But it can include well-known expressions which we try to track down quotees for, which is a major purpose for the "Anonymous" article.

I suspect that many editors feel that we don't need to worry about sourcing here, because by definition, quotes from "Anonymous" don't have a known origin. But this is confusing the idea of citing quotees with sourcing the quotes. A "source", by Wikimedia standards, is a reliable publication that cites the information included in a Wikimedia project article. That means that it is possible to require that all quotes, even ones from "Anonymous", have cited sources. They could take the form of an entry in a quote compendium like Bartlett's or a reference in a book, newspaper, magazine, film, or TV show, along the lines of"someone once said…". They should not include citations of other quote sites, as such sites provide no source information themselves and are not considered reliable.

Because of the tendency to add anything and everything to this article, I have begun weeding out quotes that I can't even find on the Internet through Google (a very low bar indeed), plus anything else that sounds like someone just made it up, seems rather inane, or is an unmemorable variation on a more famous quote. Editors wishing to add quotes should consider that, if we really decide to clean this article up, nearly every single existing quote could be deleted merely on the basis of lack of source. I doubt anybody wants to do this, but I think we need to push hard against the tide of junk quotes. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
This quote was already on the James Dean page, so I just removed it. I left the "D", though, hope that's the way to do it... SkaryMonk 21:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

 * That's fine. Thanks for doing this. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It is titled 'anonymous,' correct?
Why do so many of the quotes on this page have their authors listed below them? It kind of defeats the point of 'anonymous,' doesn't it? 71.252.245.30 01:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Half of these aren't even clever
Um, cleverness should not determine whether or not a quote is displayed.

yeah I agree, I'm going through now, and putting some of these quotes to their correct authors, and deleting them from this page.

I'm pretty sure that alot of people just come on here and put down their variations of a famous quote, or a quote they read in a really old book that's not very popular and put it down hoping that someday it would be famous and they could reveal themselves as the creators of it. And the result is the quotes from the L section: Life sucks until it stops, life that is, not the sucking. and other quotes that seem would obviously have an origin in recent history since "sucks" hasn't been used in the negative way we use it now for very long.

POOL'S CLOSED
Well, this is certianly by anonymous, but is it really relevant? -Annon3
 * Agreed. It is removed from Anonymous. --Aphaia 03:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous credited quotes?!
Some quote accompanied with names. (Not "attributed to" but simply, names). If those quotes are credited, they should be removed from this page and go to their legitimate author? Or those names signifies a different thing from credit? --Aphaia 07:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

"We are Legion"
There's an "anonymous" quotation that reads: WE ARE LEGION (in caps)

The person who added it obviously knows next-to-nothing about the quotation itself. I suspect (s)he gleaned it from some other source (hence the capitalisation), rather than the original source (Mark 5:10, and other gospels) from which it is varied.

I feel that this should be mentioned on the page (if we decide to keep the quotation), as it is good to cite a variation's original source.

If we decide to move it to a more appropriate page, then could someone else do this (I'm unfamiliar with Wikiquote). Thankyou.

Protip: lurk moar 76.217.82.114 05:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
"What we learn from history is that no one learns from history." This slight variation is on the Otto Van Bismark page, I am taking it off of this page if anyone disagrees feel free to put it back on. Conningcris 00:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

fd
Can somone please add a quote for "Z".Im not shure if ZAMBOIKIE counts as one but its a start there is no I in retardation

Nothing is Impossible
"Nothing is impossible, only improbable." Is definitely found in some variation in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy and is a repeated theme throughout.

Cleanup of Identified Quotes
The quotes at the bottom of the page should be clearly sourced and moved to the appropriate pages, also any quote with a suggested source should be reviewed and moved to the correct location if applicable.

Another thought is that having these well-known quotes with suggested sources be left on the page so those who do not know the source of a well-known quote or think there could be no claim to a quote can still find it here.

But, then again, that would defeat the purpose of being able to search Wikiquote.

Should "Anonymity" redirect here?
Is it really that likely that someone looking for "anonymity" is more interested in a list of unattributed quotes than in a list of quotes related to the theme of anonymity? Maybe this term should be redirected elsewhere, deleted, or given its own page? B7T 11:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Stupid User's Quotes
It looks like people are using this list to put their own quotes in, often with their name after. This page isn't for the uninteligent to reword other people's quotes and not get any disernable credit for it anyway, more's the pity. Can somebody tell these tiresome individuals to stop?

unintelligent, discernible

just want to add a line in history anonymous lines : ..the impossible just takes a little longer.. PLEASE BE SO KIND TO PUT THIS LINE WHERE IT BELONGS THANKS IN ADVANCE

i don't wanna take time to learn how to edit your .. page but someone _there_ should be clever, decent and patient enough to enlist some of clever sayings on comments page on your history list of anonymous quotes. I personally think this is a phrase important to evolution of human race and i didn't invented it (dr. alban - hello africa) so PLEASE ___ON MY KNEES___

 * THE IMPOSSIBLE JUST TAKES A LITTLE LONGER *******

.

Many of the identified...
Many of them don't have their source identified: the user posted one instance where it was uttered, probably not the original source. Many of them look like popular sayings and at least the "Stop the World – I Want to Get Off" musical is not the origin of the quote, as the phrase is clearly older. 189.123.163.223 18:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what she said!
The identified item "That's what she said!" is incorrectly attributed as originating from NBC television show "The Office." This phrase has appeared in several items prior to the debut of "The Office" and its origin is still unknown. A notable example of this phrase is a "King of the Hill" episode that aired a full year prior to the debut of "The Office." Ironically enough, the episode in question was also entitled "That's What She Said". I suggest this item be replaced in the "unidentified" body of quotations until there is a true origin found, rather than attributing it to incessant use in a particular recent television show. --64.111.88.67 02:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous Quote.. :)
There's always a difference.. between a best friend and a True* best friend. It takes a lot of pain and a lot of experience.. to find that difference, and once found, it hurts even more to accept it. But that done, it can be the best discovery of your life, and possibly one that you'd never regret.

new quotes
never give up, don't ever let your adversary see u bleed, always have a way out. - Theodore Laning

Another
"Better late than never"

There is a reply, not anon "Beter never late" Eric Sowerby Drake. Poet, Classics and English Scholar Historygypsy 15:03, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

And Another
He who laughs last, didn't get the joke Historygypsy 15:04, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Dorothy Parker "you can lead a..." misquotation
Missed a trick - and the joke - here. The quotation came out of a parlour game that Parker was playing with friends, along the lines of the one sometimes known as 'Contraband', in which one is given an improbable word and required to 'smuggle' it into the conversation. She was given a word meaning "the art or practice of garden cultivation and management", and so the quote should read:

"You can lead a horticulture but you cannot make her think."

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire?
umm shouldn't it be vertical expression? At least that makes more sense.

No, the correct quote here is, "Intercourse is the perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire." Or possibly so. Usually attributed to Woody Allen.

It's not the fall that kills you — it's the sudden stop at the end
This phrase appears in "Down by Law" (a 1986 film by Jim Jarmush) as a sign on the wall in the episode where Zack (Tom Waits) returns home at dawn. =hob

 * Widely attributed online to Douglas Adams. Any source for this?

It has to be older than Douglas Adams. It is paraphrased in Percy Sledge’s 1968 song “Sudden Stop” (“It’s not the fall/that hurts at all/it’s the sudden stop”). Looking for the real source but haven’t found it yet.

Keep on trucking!
Robert Crumb popularized this in the form "Keep on truckin'" A quote attributed to Mr. Crumb (on his page) says the words came from a Blind Boy Fuller song from 1935, but he didn't say which song. --Robkelk (talk) 01:25, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Please delete 'Don't feed the monkeys! They like soul-food best!' It's offensive, racist, and most importantly not even notorious. A google-search reveals only approx 12 results, most of which seem to be merely derivative of the wikiquote list given here.

Racist, Offensive and Not Notorious - Please Delete
Please delete 'Don't feed the monkeys! They like soul-food best!' It's offensive, racist, and most importantly not even notorious. A google-search reveals only approx 12 results, most of which seem to be merely derivative of the wikiquote list given here.

Modaib (talk) 00:42, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

The Mysterious "Charles J.C. Lyall"
Having posted a query over here, it's a "sit and wait" until more info comes to hand. If nothing forthcoming in the months or years ahead, should the quotes be then posted with an "attributed to Charles J.C. Lyall (unknown)" tag or similar?--Lmstearn (talk) 05:05, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Did you check the RME files accompanying the Aphorism files you linked to in your post {http://annex.retroarchive.org/cdrom/psl-sep93//DOS/HOME/MURPHY/)? They contain an address as of June 1993 in Kingman, Alberta, Canada, for the Charles J. C. Lyall who created the C program and the aphorism files. Shirley Powell (talk) 17:37, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

 * Thanks for checking- must have missed it entirely! Yes there is the address, and the program itself is copyright 1987. There are many other names mentioned in the Murphy.c file as well- it appears from that sourcee CJC Lyall is the legitimate author of those quotes.- Lmstearn (talk) 12:31, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Here are the quotes- not sure exactly how they should present in the Wikiquote areas:
 * Feminist theologians tell us that God is female. But, what about the devil? What about her?
 * Never tell an accountant that he is a credit to his profession. A good accountant is a debit to his profession.
 * When a person says that technology is "out of control", he usually means that it is out of his control. This is usually a good thing.
 * A cynic is a person who refuses to share your illusions.
 * The road to affluence is paved with good inventions
 * Lyall's Regret: Waist not, diet not. - Lmstearn (talk) 12:42, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Contradiction
The page is supposed to be for annonymous quotes but some of the quotes in the page are attributed to named people. I can't edit so will someone else take care of it? 86.45.226.161 07:51, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Anonymous Quote Fun Times
After you die everything you did will eventually be forgotten

Serously
this page exists without citations? really? so i can add anytying i want? 2602:304:CFD0:6350:8D42:230D:DDB9:8163 07:39, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Small grammar correction.
The quote 'Don't drive faster then your guardian angel can fly!' should have then replaced by than, or appended with [sic].

History quote
A quote featured on the main page is: History is just one bloody thing after another.

In fact I recall that Alan Bennett's play 'The History Boys' contains the line: '' “How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another.” ''

I don't know if the main page needs adjusting in this regard.

Wheatfromchaff (talk) 20:58, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Anonymous


text:
User:Paullusmagnus~enwikiquote

Wikipedia user page

 * Lewis Thomas

title: User:Paullusmagnus~enwikiquote


text:
Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and satirist, best known for his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy scripts and books.

 * See also:
 * Last Chance to See
 * The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
 * The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005 film based on his earlier works)

Quotes

At the moment we can't afford to go to other planets. We don't have the ships to take us there. There may be other people out there (I don't have any opinions about Life Out There, I just don't know) but it's nice to think that one could, even here and now, be whisked away just by hitchhiking.
 * When you are a student or whatever, and you can't afford a car, or a plane fare, or even a train fare, all you can do is hope that someone will stop and pick you up.
 * Statement of 1984, as quoted in Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1988) by Neil Gaiman, p. 2

 * You are disoriented. Blackness swims toward you like a school of eels who have just seen something that eels like a lot.
 * The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy text adventure game (1985), published by Infocom.

 * Driving a Porsche in London is like bringing a Ming vase to a football game.
 * As quoted in Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1988) by Neil Gaiman

 * The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second rate technology, led them into it in the first place, and continues to do so today.
 * As quoted in The Guardian (1995), and in "Biting back at Microsoft" (5 June 2001)

 * I think a nerd is a person who uses the telephone to talk to other people about telephones. And a computer nerd therefore is somebody who uses a computer in order to use a computer.
 * Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires TV program (1996)

 * Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, may have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there's plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that's a very dangerous thing to say.
 * Speech at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, (1998)

 * There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.
 * Speech at Digital Biota 2, Cambridge, UK, (1998)

 * A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."
 * Interview in The Daily Nexus (5 April 2000), reprinted in The Salmon of Doubt

 * We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it.
 * Speech at The University of California, videoed by UCTV (May 2001).

 * If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.
 * Douglas Adams. The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. New York: Random House, 2002, 135–136.
 * Also quoted by Richard Dawkins in his Eulogy for Douglas Adams (17 September 2001)

 * The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful. And … the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned.
 * Response to the question "What is it about science that really gets your blood running?" — as quoted in Richard Dawkins in his eulogy for Adams (17 September 2001)

The Meaning of Liff (1983)

 * (Co-written with John Lloyd) ISBN 0-330-28121-6

 * AALST (n.) One who changes his name to be further to the front.
 * Appears as the first entry of the book.
 * ABOYNE (vb.) To beat an expert at a game of skill by playing so appallingly badly that none of his clever tactics or strategies are of any use to him.
 * CLIXBY (adj.) Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.
 * FAIRYMOUNT (vb. n.) Polite word for buggery.
 * LAXOBIGGING (ptcpl.vb.) Struggling to extrude an extremely large turd.
 * SHOEBURYNESS (abs.n.) The vague uncomfortable feeling you get when sitting on a seat which is still warm from somebody else's bottom
 * WOKING (vb.) To enter the kitchen with the precise determination to perform something only to forget what it is just before you do it.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

 * ISBN 0671625829

 * Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

 * If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table. Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've learned something about it yourself."
 * "What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?"

"It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils," came a low growl from somewhere on the table, "without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy."
 * The teacher usually learns more than the pupils. Isn't that true?

 * The door was the way to... to... The Door was The Way. Good. Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to.

 * And that, apart from a flurry of sensational newspaper reports which exposed him as a fraud, then trumpeted him as the real thing so that they could have another round of exposing him as a fraud again and then trumpeting him as the real thing again, until they got bored and found a nice juicy snooker player to harass instead, was that.

 * This was the evening of the last day of Gordon Way's life … The weather forecast hadn't mentioned that, of course, that wasn't the job of the weather forecast, but then his horoscope had been pretty misleading as well. It had mentioned an unusual amount of planetary activity in his sign and had urged him to differentiate between what he thought he wanted and what he actually needed, and suggested that he should tackle emotional or work problems with determination and complete honesty, but had inexplicably failed to mention that he would be dead before the day was out.

 * WFT-II was the only British software company that could be mentioned in the same sentence as such major U.S. companies as Microsoft or Lotus. The sentence would probably run along the lines of "WFT-II, unlike such major U.S. companies as Microsoft or Lotus ..." but it was a start.

 * Or maybe she decided that an evening with your old tutor would be blisteringly dull and opted for the more exhilarating course of washing her hair instead. Dear me, I know what I would have done. It's only lack of hair that forces me to pursue such a hectic social round these days.

 * The seat received him in a loose and distant kind of way, like an aunt who disapproves of the last fifteen years of your life and will therefore furnish you with a basic sherry, but refuses to catch your eye.

"The what?" said Richard. "The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..." "Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity." "Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissive shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." … "You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap … ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."
 * "Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"

 * If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t. It’s like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don’t hurt it. Not even major surgery if it’s done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988)

 * It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
 * Ch. 1

 * "My name is Kate Schechter. Two 'c's, two 'h's, two 'e's, and also a 't', an 'r', and an 's'. Provided they're all there the bank won't be fussy about the order they come in. They never seem to know themselves."
 * Ch. 1

First the IRA, then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was completely under control, that it was a one in a million chance, that there was hardly any radioactive leakage at all, and that the site of the explosion would make a nice location for a day out with the kids and a picnic, before finally having to admit that it wasn't actually anything to do with them at all.
 * The usual people tried to claim responsibility.
 * Ch. 2

 * In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was "nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation," or to put it another way--as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career--the check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it was."
 * Ch. 2

She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabin trunks were full of vivid, and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life; the other nine-tenths were full of penguins, which surprised her. Insofar as she recognised at all that she was dreaming, she realised that she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.
 * It was a couple of days before Kate Schechter became aware of any of these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world.
 * Ch. 2

 * You would probably not say that he was sleeping the sleep of the just, unless you meant the just asleep, but it was certainly the sleep of someone who was not fooling about when he climbed into bed of a night and turned off the light.
 * Ch. 3

 * The room was not a room to elevate the soul. Louis XIV, to pick a name at random, would not have liked it, would have found it not sunny enough, and insufficiently full of mirrors. He would have desired someone to pick up the socks, put the records away, and maybe burn the place down. Michelangelo would have been distressed by its proportions, which were neither lofty nor shaped by any noticeable inner harmony or symmetry, other than that all parts of the room were pretty much equally full of old coffee mugs, shoes and brimming ashtrays, most of which were now sharing their tasks with each other. The walls were painted in almost precisely that shade of green which Raffaello Sanzio would have bitten off his own right hand at the wrist rather than use, and Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an hour later armed with a navigable river. It was, in short, a dump, and was likely to remain so for as long as it remained in the custody of Mr Svlad, or 'Dirk', Gently, né Cjelli.
 * Ch. 3

 * ...he had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his "Zen" method of navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.
 * Ch. 4

 * Always expecting this and expecting that. May I recommend serenity to you? A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. Learn to be one with the joy of the moment.
 * Ch. 4

He felt momentarily deflated and said, "Er..." by way of self-introduction, but it didn't get the boy's attention. He didn't like this. The kid was deliberately and maliciously watching television at him.
 * Dirk was unused to making such a minuscule impact on anybody. He checked to be sure that he did have his huge leather coat and his absurd red hat on and that he was properly and dramatically silhouetted by the light of the doorway.
 * Ch. 6

But, thought Dirk, what god? And why? What god would be hanging around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport trying to catch the 15:37 flight to Oslo?
 * The explosion was now officially designated an "Act of God."
 * Ch.6

 * Thor was the God of Thunder and, frankly, acted like it.
 * Ch. 7

 * The device [electronic I Ching calculator] also functioned as an ordinary calculator, but only to a limited degree. It could handle any calculation which returned an answer of anything up to 4. ...anything above 4 it represented merely as "A Suffusion of Yellow." Dirk was not certain if this was a programming error or an insight beyond his ability to fathom, but he was crazy about it anyway, enough to hand over twenty pounds of ready cash for the thing.
 * Ch. 10

 * It was a battered yellow Citroën 2CV which had had one careful owner but also three suicidally reckless ones.
 * Ch. 11

 * She held the car grimly to the road as it negotiated the bends with considerable difficulty and the straight sections with only slightly less. The car had landed her in court on one occasion when one of its front wheels had sailed off on a little expedition of its own and nearly caused an accident. The police witness in court had referred to her beloved Citroën as "the alleged car" and the name had subsequently stuck. She was particularly fond of the alleged car for many reasons. If one of its doors, for instance, fell off she could put it back on herself, which is more than you could say for a BMW.
 * Ch. 12

 * My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it's going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere I needed to be.
 * Ch. 13

 * ...my methods of navigation have their advantage. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
 * Ch. 13

I reject that entirely. The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.'
 * What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'
 * Ch. 14

 * It was his subconscious which told him this — that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing.
 * Ch. 17

 * There was constant talk about hewing things and ravaging things and splitting things asunder. Lots of big talk of things being mighty, and of things being riven, and of things being in thrall to other things, but very little attention given, as I now realise, to the laundry.
 * Ch. 18

"I can't even begin to understand what you're talking about," said Kate, "you say that I, we —" "You can begin to understand," said Thor, angrily, "which is why I have come to you. Do you know that most people hardly see me? Hardly notice me at all? It is not that we are hidden. We are here. We move among you. My people. Your gods. You gave birth to us. You made us what you would not dare to be yourselves. Yet you will not acknowledge us. If I walk along one of your streets in this... world you have made for yourselves without us, then barely an eye will once flicker in my direction." "Is this when you're wearing the helmet?" "Especially when I'm wearing the helmet!"
 * "Immortals are what you wanted," said Thor in a low, quiet voice. "Immortals are what you got. It is a little hard on us. You wanted us to be for ever, so we are for ever. Then you forget about us. But we are still for ever. Now at last, many are dead, many are dying," he then added in a quiet voice, "but it takes a special effort."
 * Ch. 22

 * Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat when its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.
 * Ch. 23

 * The Great Zaganza said: "You are very fat and stupid and persistently wear a ridiculous hat which you should be ashamed of."
 * Ch. 35

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future (2001)

 * A BBC Radio 4 radio programme on how new media and technology will change our lives

 * It'd be like a bunch of rivers, the Amazon and the Mississippi and the Congo asking how the Atlantic Ocean might affect them… and the answer is, of course, that they won't be rivers anymore, just currents in the ocean.
 * His stated response to representatives of the music, publishing and broadcasting industries who had asked Douglas at a conference how he thought technological changes will affect them, apparently hoping his response would be something to the effect of, "not very much"''

 * It's important to remember that the relationship between different media tends to be complementary. When new media arrive they don't necessarily replace or eradicate previous types. Though we should perhaps observe a half second silence for the eight-track. — There that's done. What usually happens is that older media have to shuffle about a bit to make space for the new one and its particular advantages. Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies — what television did kill was cinema newsreel. TV does it much better because it can deliver it instantly. Who wants last week's news?

 * Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone.

Parrots, the Universe and Everything (2001)

 * Excerpts from Adams' final public appearance before his death in May 2001.

 * For us, there is no longer a fundamental mystery about Life. It is all the process of extraordinary eruptions of information, and it is information which gives us this fantastically rich, complex world in which we live; but at the same time that we've discovered that we are destroying it at a rate that has no precedent in history, unless you go back to the point when we are hit by an asteroid!

 * Part of how we come to take command of our world, to take command of our environment, to make these tools by which we're able to do this, is we ask ourselves questions about it the whole time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world," he says, "so who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because he makes things himself. So he's looking for someone who would have made this world. He says, "Well, so who would have made this world? Well, it must be something a little like me. Obviously much much bigger. And necessarily invisible. But he would have made it. Now why did he make it?" Now we always ask ourselves "why?" because we look for intention around us; because we always intend– we do something with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So we look at the rocks, and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention.

 * If we think that the world is here for us we will continue to destroy it the way we have been destroying it, because we think we can do no harm.

The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

 * The Salmon of Doubt : Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (2002)

 * "Stotting" is jumping upward with all four legs simultaneously. My advice: do not die until you've seen a large black poodle stotting in the snow.

 * For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while.

 * All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

 * Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

 * There is no problem so complicated that you can't find a very simple answer to it if you look at it right … Or put it another way, "The future of computer power is pure simplicity."

 * I am fascinated by religion. (That's a completely different thing from believing in it!) It has had such an incalculably huge effect on human affairs. What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it? I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing.

 * I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

 * My favourite piece of information is that Branwell Brontë, brother of Emily and Charlotte, died standing up leaning against a mantelpiece, in order to prove it could be done. This is not quite true, in fact. My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.

 * The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them.

 * We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.

 * In fact the only thing that I don't like about Whisky, is that if I take the merest sip of the stuff, it sends a sharp pain from the back of my left eyeball down to the tip of my right elbow, and I begin to walk in a very special way, bumping into people and snarling at the furniture. I have therefore learned to turn my attention to other tipples. Margaritas, I'm very fond of, but they make me buy very stupid things. When ever I've had a few margaritas I always wake up in the morning with a sense of dread as to what I will find downstairs. The worst was a 6ft long pencil and a 2ft wide India rubber that I had shipped over from New York, as a result of one injudicious binge.

 * I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
 * "He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left."
 * "Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there."
 * "… Most of the words that airline staff used, or rather most of the sentences into which they were habitually arranged, had been worked so hard that they had died."

 * How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?
 * Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2)

 * I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
 * Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
 * Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
 * Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

Quotes about Adams

He was drunk. He was poverty-stricken. He was too poor to afford a room at a youth hostel (the entire story is told at length in his introduction to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Four Parts in England, and The Hitchhiker's Trilogy in the US) and he wound up, at the end of a harrowing day, flat on his back in a field in Innsbruck, staring up at the stars. "Somebody," he thought, "somebody really ought to write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." He forgot about the idea shortly thereafter. '''Five years later, while he was struggling to think of a legitimate reason for an alien to visit Earth, the phrase returned to him. The rest is history…'''
 * It was 1971, and the eighteen-year-old Douglas Adams was hitchhiking his way across Europe with a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe that he had stolen (he hadn't bothered "borrowing" a copy of Europe on $5 a Day; he didn't have that kind of money).
 * Neil Gaiman, on the origins of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Don't Panic : The Official Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Companion (1988), p. 1

title: Douglas Adams


text:
Aesop

Aesop (or Æsop, from Greek Αἴσωπος Aisopos) (c. 620 BC – c. 560 BC) was an ancient Greek fabulist of possibly African descent (his Greek name means Ethiopian or black man in today's parlance), by tradition a slave who credited the African goddess Isis for his gift. Aesop's Fables are still taught as moral lessons and used as subjects for various entertainments, especially children's plays and cartoons.

Quotes

 * A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

 * Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
 * The Wolf and the Lamb.

 * Appearances often are deceiving.
 * The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.

 * Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.
 * Juno and the Peacock.

 * Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.
 * The Lion, The Ass, And The Fox Hunting.

 * Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
 * The Dog and the Shadow.

 * Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.
 * The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.
 * Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
 * The Milkmaid and Her Pail.

 * Don't cry over spilt milk.
 * The Milkmaid and Her Pail.

 * Enemies' promises were made to be broken.
 * The Nurse and the Wolf, as translated by Joseph Jacobs (1894).
 * Familiarity breeds contempt.
 * The Fox and the Lion.
 * Variant: Acquaintance softens prejudices.

 * I am sure the grapes are sour.
 * The Fox and the Grapes.

 * I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath.
 * The Man and the Satyr.

 * In critical moments even the very powerful have need of the weakest.
 * The Lion and the Mouse.

 * It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
 * The Wolf and the Kid.

 * It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow.
 * The Ant and the Grasshopper.

 * It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
 * The Jay and the Peacock.

 * Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
 * The Fox and the Goat.

 * No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
 * The Lion and the Mouse.
 * People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
 * The Dog in the Manger.

 * Persuasion is often more effectual than force.
 * The Wind and the Sun.

 * Put your shoulder to the wheel.
 * Hercules and the Wagoner.

 * Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction.
 * The Frog and the Ox.

 * Slow and steady wins the race.
 * The Hare and the Tortoise.

 * The boy cried "Wolf, wolf!" and the villagers came out to help him.
 * The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf.

 * The fly sat upon the axel-tree of the chariot-wheel and said, 'What a dust do I raise!'
 * The Fly on the Wheel.

 * The gods help them that help themselves.
 * Hercules and the Wagoner.
 * The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.
 * The Eagle and the Arrow.

 * Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing.
 * The Goose with the Golden Eggs.

 * Union gives strength.
 * The Bundle of Sticks.

 * We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.
 * The Old Man and Death.
 * While I see many hoof marks going in, I see none coming out. It is easier to get into the enemy's toils than out again.
 * The Lion, the Fox, and the Beasts.

Misattributed

 * We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
 * The first known appearance of this "quote" attributed to Aesop, is in the 1965 edition of the book 10,000 Jokes, Toasts & Stories by Lewis and Faye Copeland. No story of fable is known for which it could be the moral or lesson.
 * There is a similar saying on theft by Cato.

Quotes about Aesop

 * There are certain artists who belong to all the people, everywhere, all the time. The list of singers, musicians, and poets must include David the harpist from the Old Testament, Aesop the Storyteller, Omar Khayyam the Tent Maker, Shakespeare the Bard of Avon, Louis Armstrong the genius of New Orleans, Om Kalsoum the soul of Egypt, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles...Celia Cruz...All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike.
 * Maya Angelou Letter to My Daughter (2009)

title: Aesop


text:
Woody Allen

 (born Allen Stewart Königsberg on December 1, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, comedian and musician.

 * See also: Woody Allen films

Quotes

 * Marriage? That's for life! It's like cement!
 * What's New, Pussycat? (1965).

 * I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It's about Russia.
 * Attributed to Allen by Herb Caen in Reader's Digest, October 1967. For additional citations see this entry from Quote Investigator.

 * I think crime pays. The hours are good, you meet a lot of interesting people, you travel a lot.
 * Take the Money and Run (1969).

Woman: Yes, it is. Allen: What does it say to you? Woman: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos. Allen: What are you doing Saturday night? Woman: Committing suicide. Allen: What about Friday night?
 * Allen: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?
 * Play It Again, Sam (1972).

 * On bisexuality: It immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.
 * The earliest source located is here, in the sidebar "Quotations According to Woody Allen" which appeared alongside the New York Times article "Everything You Wanted to Know About Woody Allen at 40" by Mel Gussow, 1 December 1975, p. 33. Full text also available in Lakeland Ledger, 25 December 1975 on google news.
 * Unsourced variant: "Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."

 * Love is the answer. But while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
 * Also found in "Quotations According to Woody Allen" from The New York Times (1 December 1975).

 * There have been times when I've thought of suicide but with my luck it'd probably be a temporary solution.
 * Also found in "Quotations According to Woody Allen" from The New York Times (1 December 1975).

 * The difference between sex and death is, with death you can do it alone and nobody's going to make fun of you.
 * Also found in "Quotations According to Woody Allen" from The New York Times (1 December 1975).

 * To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
 * Stardust Memories (1980).

 * Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
 * A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982).

 * It figures you've got to hate yourself if you've got any integrity at all.
 * Quoted by Douglas Brode in Woody Allen – His Films and Career (1985).

 * Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.
 * Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

 * I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.
 * Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

 * What a world. It could be so wonderful if it wasn't for certain people.
 * Radio Days (1987).

 * [The universe is] haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent.
 * September (1987).

 * Change is death.
 * Husbands and Wives.

 * Some guy hit my car fender the other day, and I said unto him, "Be fruitful and multiply." But not in those words.
 * The Woody Allen Companion (1993) edited by Stephen J. Spignesi, Ch. 7.

 * I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don't want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.
 * The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader (1993)
 * The joke about immortality also appears in On Being Funny (1975)
 * In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine from April 9, 1987, Allen said: "Someone once asked me if my dream was to live on in the hearts of people, and I said I would prefer to live on in my apartment."

 * How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
 * As quoted in Love, Sex, Death & The Meaning of Life : The Films of Woody Allen (2001) by Foster Hirsch, p. 50.

 * We're worth a lot of dough. Whatever you see is antiques. This thing here. This is from — I don't remember exactly. I think it's the Renaissance or the Magna Carta or something. But that's where it's from.
 * Small Time Crooks (2001).

 * I'm not saying I didn't enjoy myself, but I didn't.
 * The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001).

 * As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11 [...] it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again.
 * Interview in Der Spiegel (June 20, 2005, as quoted by the New York Post)

 * I have no apprehension whatsoever. I've been through this so many times. And I found that one way or the other, your life doesn't change at all. Which is sad, in a way. Because the people love your film... nothing great happens. And people hate your film... nothing terrible happens. Many years ago, I would... I would... a film of mine would open, and it would get great reviews, and I would go down and look at the movie theater. There'd be a line around the block. And when a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares. They're not interested. They've got their own lives, and their own problems, and their own shadows on their lungs, and their x-rays. And, you know, they've got their own stuff they're dealing with.... So, I'm just never nervous about it.
 * September 2007 interview, promoting [[w:Cassandra's Dreams|Cassandra's Dreams]].

 * I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn't do it, that's why they don't accomplish a thing, they don't do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say [sic] my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.
 * Interview for The Collider (2008), see copy in Wayback Machine

 * To me there's no real difference between a fortune teller or a fortune cookie and any of the organized religions. They're all equally valid or invalid, really. And equally helpful.
 * New York Times interview (2010).

 * This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.
 * Press conference for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger at the Cannes Film Festival (2011).

All I can do is wait for it,
 * My relationship with death remains the same - I'm strongly against it,
 * Ibid.

 * You start to think, when you're younger, how important everything is and how things have to go right—your job, your career, your life, your choices, and all of that. Then, after a while, you start to realise that – I'm talking the big picture here – eventually you die, and eventually the sun burns out and the earth is gone, and eventually all the stars and all the planets in the entire universe go, disappear, and nothing is left at all. Nothing – Shakespeare and Beethoven and Michelangelo gone. And you think to yourself that there's a lot of noise and sound and fury – and where's it going? It's not going any place... Now, you can't actually live your life like that, because if you do you just sit there and – why do anything? Why get up in the morning and do anything? So I think it's the job of the artist to try and figure out why, given this terrible fact, you want to go on living.
 * Interview with France 24 (2010).

 * The film studios learned to our dismay but to their pleasure that if they spent $200 million making a film they could make half a billion on it. So they were not interested anymore in quality films... They can't afford to be that risky at those prices. Consequently you're getting a lot of remakes, sequels, dopey comedies full of toilet jokes...
 * BBC radio interview (2011).

 * Death is like a colonoscopy, the problem is that life is like the prep day.
 *

Getting Even (1971)

 * I don't believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
 * "Conversations with Helmholtz"

 * V. attacked his first woman at eighteen, and thereafter raped half a dozen per week for years. The best I was able to do with him in therapy was to substitute a more socially acceptable habit to replace his aggressive tendencies; and thereafter when he chanced upon an unsuspecting female, instead of assaulting her, he would produce a large halibut from his jacket and show it to her. While the sight of it caused consternation in some, the women were spared any violence and some even confessed their lives were immeasurably enriched by the experience.
 * "Conversations with Helmholtz"

 * Last year, organized crime was directly responsible for more than one hundred murders, and mafiosi participated indirectly in several hundred more, either by lending the killers carfare or by holding their coats. Other illicit activities engaged in by Cosa Nostra members included gambling, narcotics, prostitution, hijacking, loansharking, and the transportation of a large whitefish across the state line for immoral purposes.
 * "A Look on Organized Crime"

 * Rabbi Zwi Chaim Yisroel, an Orthodox scholar of the Torah and a man who developed whining to an art unheard of in the West, was unanimously hailed as the wisest man of the Renaissance by his fellow-Hebrews, who totalled a sixteenth of one per cent of the population. Once, while he was on his way to synagogue to celebrate the sacred Jewish holiday commemorating God's reneging on every promise, a woman stopped him and asking the following question: "Rabbi, why are we not allowed to eat pork?" "We're not?" the Rev said incredulously. "Uh-oh."
 * "Hassidic Tales, with a Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar"

"Abraham," the Zaddik said. "But Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land," said the disciple. "All right, so Moses," the Zaddik answered.
 * Rabbi Raditz of Poland was a very short rabbi with a long beard, who was said to have inspired many pogroms with his sense of humor. One of his disciples asked, "Who did God like better, Moses or Abraham?"

 * "Hassidic Tales, with A Guide to Their Interpretation by the Noted Scholar"

 * "I do not believe in God," I told him. "For if there is a God, then tell me, Uncle, why is there poverty and baldness? Why do some men go through life immune to a thousand mortal enemies of the race, while others get a migraine that lasts for weeks? Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?"
 * "Notes from the Overfed"

My Philosophy

 * Can we actually "know" the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.

 * It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune.

 * Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it.

 * Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)

 * Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.
 * They called me mad... But it was I - yes I - who discovered the link between excessive masturbation and entry into politics!
 * When it comes to sex there are certain things that should always be left unknown, and with my luck, they probably will be.

Sleeper (1973)

 * My brain: it's my second favorite organ.

 * Oh, he was probably a member of the National Rifle Association. It was a group that helped criminals get guns so they could shoot citizens. It was a public service.

 * I'm not really the heroic type. I was beat up by Quakers.

 * Sex and death. Two things that come but once in my lifetime, but at least after death you're not nauseous.

Love and Death (1975)

 * To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But, then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness — I hope you're getting this down.

 * Human beings are divided into mind and body. The mind embraces all the nobler aspirations, like poetry and philosophy, but the body has all the fun.

 * The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.

 * Sex without love is an empty experience. But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.

 * If I don't kill him he'll make war all through Europe. But murder... the most foul of all crimes. What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild parties. I bet they all took a house together in Crete for the summer. A: Socrates is a man. B: All men are mortal. C: All men are Socrates. That means all men are homosexuals. Heh... I'm not a homosexual. Once, some cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions. You know, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don't think about sex at all, you know... they become lawyers.

 * I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.

 * In addition to our summer and winter estate, he owned a valuable piece of land. True, it was a small piece, but he carried it with him wherever he went.

 * And so I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Actually, make that "I run through the valley of the shadow of death" - in order to get OUT of the valley of the shadow of death more quickly, you see.

 * We have to take our possessions and flee. I'm very good at that. I was the men's freestyle fleeing champion two years in a row.

Without Feathers (1975)

 * As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree"— probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
 * "The Early Essays".

 * Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
 * "The Early Essays".

 * The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife — a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.
 * "The Early Essays".

 * Once a lumberjack was about to chop down a tree, when he noticed a heart carved on it, with two names inside. Putting away his axe, he sawed down the tree instead. The point of that story escapes me, although six months later the lumberjack was fined for teaching a dwarf Roman numerals.
 * "The Early Essays".

 * He had been mistaken several times for Robert Redford, but on each occasion it was by a blind person.
 * "No Kaddish for Weinstein".

 * What a wonderful thing, to be conscious! I wonder what the people in New Jersey do.
 * "No Kaddish for Weinstein".

 * He was on his way to see Harriet about the alimony payments. He still loved Harriet, even though while they were married she had systematically attempted to commit adultery with all the R's in the Manhattan telephone directory.
 * "No Kaddish for Weinstein".

 * Thought: Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
 * "Selections from the Allen Notebooks".

 * What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
 * "Selections from the Allen Notebooks".

 * If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.
 * "Selections from the Allen Notebooks".

 * Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, "How insignificant I am!" Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained. I was overcome with self-loathing and contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.
 * "Selections from the Allen Notebooks".

 * And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham's hand and said, "How could thou doest such a thing?" And Abraham said, "But thou said-" "Never mind what I said," the Lord spake. "Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?" And Abraham grew ashamed. "Er-not really... no." "I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it." And Abraham fell to his knees, "See, I never know when you're kidding." And the Lord thundered, "No sense of humor. I can't believe it."
 * "Scrolls"

 * The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
 * "Scrolls".

 * Lovborg's work can be divided into three periods. First came the series of plays dealing with anguish, despair, dread, fear, and loneliness (the comedies); the second group focused on social change (Lovborg was instrumental in bringing about safer methods of weighing herring); finally, there were the six great tragedies written just before his death, in Stockholm, in 1902, when his nose fell off, owing to tension.
 * "Lovborg's Women Considered"

 * For fifty bucks, I learned, you could "relate without getting close." For a hundred, a girl would lend you her Bartók records, have dinner, and then let you watch while she had an anxiety attack. For one-fifty, you could listen to FM radio with twins. For three bills, you got the works: A thin Jewish brunette would pretend to pick you up at the Museum of Modern Art, let you read her master's, get you involved in a screaming quarrel at Elaine's over Freud's conception of women, and then fake a suicide of your choosing - the perfect evening, for some guys.
 * "The Whore of Mensa"

 * A fine example of a demonstration was the Boston Tea Party, where outraged Americans disguised as Indians dumped British tea into the harbor. Later, Indians disguised as outraged Americans dumped actual British into the harbor. Following that, the British disguised as tea, dumped each other into the harbor. Finally, German mercenaries clad only in costumes from The Trojan Women leapt into the harbor for no apparent reason.
 * "A Brief, Yet Helpful, Guide to Civil Disobedience"

 * Viscous and Sons had announced publication of The Annotated Poems of Sean O'Shawn, the great Irish poet, considered by many to be the most incomprehensible and hence the finest poet of his time. Abounding in highly personal references, an understanding of O'Shawn's work requires an intimate knowledge of his life, which, according to scholars, not even he had.
 * "The Irish Genius"

 * It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
 * "Death (A Play)".

 * What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
 * from the play God.

The Front (1976)

 * I don't recognize this committee's right to ask me these kind of questions! And furthermore, you can all go fuck yourselves.
 * (Addressing a group of government moles working for the House Un-American Activities Committee.)

Annie Hall (1977)

 * I heard that Commentary and Dissent had merged and formed Dysentery.
 * I can't get with any religion that advertises in Popular Mechanics.
 * I had dated a woman briefly in the Eisenhower administration, and it was ironic to me, because I was trying to do to her what Eisenhower had been doing to the country for the last 8 years.

Side Effects (1980)

 * No wonder some people commit suicide! Why not end this absurdity? Why go through with this hollow charade called life? Why, except that somewhere within us a voice says, "Live." Always, from some inner region, we hear the command,"Keep living!" Cloquet recognized the voice; it was his insurance salesman. Naturally, he thought - Fishbein doesn't want to pay off.
 * "The Condemned"

 * It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
 * "The UFO Menace".

 * Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought — particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things.
 * "The UFO Menace".

 * A typical "explained" incident is the one reported by Sir Chester Ramsbottom, on June 5, 1961, in Shropshire: "I was driving along the road at 2 A.M. and saw a cigar-shaped object that seemed to be tracking my car. No matter which way I drove, it stayed with me, turning sharply at right angles. It was a fierce, glowing red, and in spite of twisting and turning the car at high speed I could not lose it. I became alarmed and began sweating. I let out a shriek of terror and apparently fainted, but awoke in a hospital, miraculously unharmed." Upon investigation, experts determined that the "cigar-shaped object" was Sir Chester's nose. Naturally, all his evasive actions could not lose it, since it was attached to his face.
 * "The UFO Menace"

 * More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
 * "My Speech to the Graduates"

 * My second wife was beautiful, but lacked real passion. I recall once, while we were making love, a curious optical illusion occurred and for a split second it almost looked as though she was moving.
 * "The Lunatic's Tale"

 * Is anything in nature actually "perfect" with the exception of my Uncle Hyman's stupidity? Who am I to demand perfection? I, with my myriad faults. I made a list of my faults, but could not get past: 1) Sometimes forgets his hat.
 * "The Lunatic's Tale"

 * I sit in a London pub with Willie Maugham. I am distressed, because my first novel, Proud Emetic, has been coolly received by the critics. Its one favorable notice, in the Times, was vitiated by the last sentence, which called the book "a miasma of asinine cliches unrivalled in Western letters." Maugham explains that while this quote can be interpreted many ways, it might be best not to use it in the print ads.
 * "Reminiscences: Places and People"

My Apology

 * Woody Allen as Socrates...

 * Of all the famous men who ever lived, the one I would most like to have been was Socrates. Not just because he was a great thinker, because I have been known to have some reasonably profound insights myself, although mine invariably revolve around a Swedish airline stewardess and some handcuffs.

 * Death is a state of non-being. That which is not, does not exist. Therefore death does not exist. Only truth exists. Truth and beauty. Each is interchangeable, but are aspects of themselves. Er, what specifically did they say they had in mind for me?

 * Hey listen — I've proved a lot of things. That's how I pay my rent. Theories and little observations. A puckish remark now and then. Occasional maxims. It beats picking olives, but let's not get carried away.

 * Agathon: But all that talk about death being the same as sleep. Socrates: Yes, the difference is that when you're dead and somebody yells, "Everybody up, it's morning," it's very hard to find your slippers.

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

 * Taste my tuna casserole — tell me if I put in too much hot fudge.

 * What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!

 * I bought her this handkerchief... and I didn't even know her size.

 * I can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.

Don't Drink the Water (1994)

 * [about his daughter] I'd rather she grew up here than grew up as an orphan, you know I can tolerate anybody's orphans but my own.

 * ...years of insanity have made this guy crazy!

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

 * Harry: Between the Pope and air conditioning, I'd choose air conditioning.

 * Harry: You think the President of the United States wants to fuck every woman he meets?... Well, bad example.

 * Harry: The most beautiful words in the English language aren't "I love you" but "it's benign."

 * Harry: Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing. Waitressing's gotta be the worst fucking job in the world.

 * Cookie: What are you sad about?Harry: I'm spiritually bankrupt. I'm empty.Cookie: What do you mean?Harry: I'm frightened. I got no soul, you know what I mean? Let me put it this way: when I was younger it was less scary waiting for Lefty than it is waiting for Godot.Cookie: You lost me!Harry: You know that the universe is coming apart? You know about that? You know what a black hole is?Cookie: Yeah. That's how I make my living.

 * Burt: Do you care even about the Holocaust or do you think it never happened?Harry: Not only do I know that we lost six million, but the scary thing is that records are made to be broken.

 * Harry: No, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're the opposite of paranoid.  I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.

 * Harry: Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

 * Harry: (On being called a self-hating Jew) Hey, I may hate myself, but not because I'm Jewish.

 * Doris: You have no values. With you it's all nihilism, cynicism, sarcasm, and orgasm.Harry: Hey, in France I could run for office with that slogan, and win!

 * The Devil: You want me to turn the air-conditioning on?Harry: You have air-conditioning in Hell?The Devil: Sure, it fucks up the ozone layer!

 * Harry: All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.

Standup Comic (1999)
A CD compilation of Allen comedy routines from 1964-1968

 * A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight.

 * I feel sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it's fantastic.

 * A fast word about oral contraception. I was involved in an extremely good example of oral contraception two weeks ago. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said "no."

 * Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.

 * I was in analysis. I was suicidal. As a matter of fact, I would have killed myself, but I was in analysis with a strict Freudian and if you kill yourself they make you pay for the sessions you miss.

 * I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

 * I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

 * I'm not a drinker — my body will not tolerate spirits. I had two Martinis on New Year's Eve and I tried to hijack an elevator and fly it to Cuba.

 * When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.

 * It is a gorgeous gold pocket watch, however, I'm proud of it. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.

Mere Anarchy (2007)

 * How could I not have known that there are little things the size of "Planck length" in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theater how hard it would be to find.

 * And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?

 * With that, he scribbled in an additional ninety thousand dollars on the estimate, which had waxed to the girth of the Talmud while rivaling it in possible interpretations.

 * I have also reviewed my own financial obligations, which have puffed up recently like a hammered thumb.

 * She quarreled with the nanny and accused her of brushing Misha's teeth sideways rather than up and down.

 * As we know, for centuries Rome regarded the Open Hot Turkey Sandwich as the height of licentiousness.

 * I was supremely confident my flair for atmosphere and characterization would sparkle alongside the numbing mulch ground out by studio hacks. Certainly the space atop my mantel might be better festooned by a gold statuette than by the plastic dipping bird that now bobbed there ad infinitum.

 * Bidnick gorges himself on Viagra, but the dosage makes him hallucinate and causes him to imagine he is Pliny the Elder.

 * To a man standing on the shore, time passes quicker than to a man on a boat — especially if the man on the boat is with his wife.

Attributed

 * I have learned one thing. As Woody says, "Showing up is 80 percent of life." Sometimes it's easier to hide home in bed. I've done both. - 1977 August 21, New York Times, Section 2: Arts and Leisure, He's Woody Allen's Not-So-Silent Partner by Susan Braudy, Page 11 (ProQuest Page 83), New York.

 * Woody Allen later wrote in a letter: "My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel, he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book. In the midst of the conversation, as I'm now trying to recall, I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up." - 1989 August 13, New York Times, On Language: The Elysian Fields by William Safire.

Others

 * "I WANTED nothing more than to be a foreign filmmaker, but of course I was from Brooklyn, which was not a foreign country. Through a happy accident I wound up being a foreign filmmaker because I couldn't raise money any other way."
 * As quoted in the New York Times, That's Amore: Italy as Muse: Woody Allen on Italian Movies and 'To Rome With Love', June 15, 2012.
 * "You know, the whole American culture is going down the drain, you can't turn on a television set and see anything, or walk in the street and not find garbage, or neighborhoods that were formerly beautiful now have McDonald's in them, and it's all a part of an enormous degeneration of culture in the United States. People that exist in that culture are forced to make moral decisions all the time about their lives, their occupations, their love-lives, and they make decisions that are commensurate with what's happening to them in this culture, and it's too bad that that's happening because that's what Manhattan is about, that New York used to be such a great city, so wonderful, and it has to fight every day for its survival against the encroachment of all this terrible ugliness that is gradually overcoming all the big cities in America. This ugliness comes from a culture that has no spiritual center, a culture that has money and education, but no sense of being at peace with the world, no sense of purpose in life. They don't know what they're doing, or why they're here. They have no religious center, they have no philosophical center, and so they act, they do what's expedient at the moment. They have no long view of society. They only have the view of quick money, and kill the pain of the moment, and so instead of dealing with the real problems that exist, that are complicated, they sweep them under the rug by turning on the television set, or taking cocaine, or doing many things that enable them to escape confrontation with the unpleasant realities of the world."

Quotes about Allen

 * At the time that I worked with Woody Allen, I knew nothing of the allegations. At the time, I said it's a very painful and complicated situation for the family, which I hope they have the ability to resolve....If these allegations need to be re-examined which, in my understanding, they've been through court, then I'm a big believer in the justice system and setting legal precedents,....If the case needs to be reopened, I am absolutely, wholeheartedly in support of that.
 * Cate Blanchett, Interview with Christiane Amanpour, CNN 21 Mar 2018.  Quoted in "Cate Blanchett on Woody Allen: 'I don't think I've stayed silent at all'", The Guardian (March 22, 2018).

 * In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director.
 * Vincent Canby in his review for Zelig in "Woody Allen Continues to Refine His Cinematic Art" The New York Times (July 17, 1983).

In Zelig he reassures us that he can still be funny and moving without making the sort of insistent filmic references in which he delights but which can be infuriating to others. Zelig is a nearly perfect — and perfectly original — Woody Allen comedy.
 * With the possible exception of What's Up, Tiger Lily (1966), the schlocky Japanese spy movie to which he attached his own, sidesplitting English soundtrack, no Woody Allen movie has ever been more or less serious than another of his works. He's always been serious. It's the audiences who have been frivolous.
 * Vincent Canby in his review for Zelig in "Woody Allen Continues to Refine His Cinematic Art" The New York Times (July 17, 1983).

 * This is Woody Allen's 41st film. He writes his films himself, and directs them with wit and grace. I consider him a treasure of the cinema.
 * Roger Ebert, |Review of Midnight in Paris (May 24, 2011).

 * Woody Allen is currently having non-incest with a non-daughter for whom he is a non-father because they have no concept of families...it's a weird environment out there.
 * Newt Gingrich, Speech in Georgia (August 1992). Quoted in JoAnn Wypijewski "Woody and Mia: A Modern Family Timeline", The Nation (February 26, 2014).

 * Without Feathers, a collection of Woody Allen’s early short stories, was a prized possession.
 * Carl Hiaasen interview quoted here

 * I think the best thing for writers to do with the movies is to keep their trap shut. Woody Allen said, "Take the money and run," and he's right.
 * 1994 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin edited by Carl Freedman (2008)

 * I don't even think Woody does comedy. I think he does dramas with jokes. They're all sad at their core.
 * Chris Rock in a Vulture.com interview (November 30, 2014).

 * If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now.
 * Salman Rushdie. The Independent, (London, February 18, 1989), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

 * In Woody Allen, the Republicans quickly discovered the genuine article, a sexual heretic...Of course it is absurd to suggest that Americans do not approve of love. They do, with the same highly trained enthusiasm with which they approve of a sense of humour. Their desire to preserve this infantile attitude is what makes them so frightened of feeling sympathy for Woody Allen. They do not wish to acknowledge that true love might also be socially disruptive, so they insist that the socially disruptive is not true love. That is why it is so crucial that Woody Allen be thought not only immoral, but insincere.
 * The Spectator magazine, "Editorial: Sacred and profane love in the Republican allegory" (September 5, 1992).

title: Woody Allen