Albert Brooks quotes

When I was younger, I wasn't concentrating on good days. I was managing a career and trying to have a good year. It would always 'lead' to something, which never leads to anything except death, where everything leads to. And then as I got older, and then I had my kids and everything, I began to appreciate a great Wednesday.

Normally movies have the same people they use over and over for everything. It's called typecasting. They don't like to take chances. They'll go with the guy they had before.

I cast unusual people in my movies.

I can't not put humor in a book.

I had a very wise person tell me that he thinks marriage, when you're younger, you keep thinking you can fix things. That's what people do. And you can't really fix anything. It shouldn't be a massive difficult thing every day. Life's difficult enough.

Twitter, to me, works if you're funny. Twitter doesn't work as a promotional tool unless you do it very, very, very occasionally.

I like movies about failing.

I've done performances in movies that I was immensely proud of and the movies didn't take off like a rocket at Cape Canaveral, it didn't take off.

Listen, there are some movies that are set in stone and the writer or the director does not want to change, but I've never worked on a movie, including my own, that didn't take advantage of a rehearsal process.

I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.

Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

I made my living in comedy, but I'm not a silly person. I've got all these sides to me. Even in my movies that I've written myself, the characters sometimes border on great anger or nutsiness or other kinds of behavior. I'm not just doing fart jokes for two hours.

There've been a few mother-daughter movies that are somewhat realistic. But the mother-son movies are more comical than realistic: 'Throw Momma from the Train,' 'Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot.' You don't sit in the dark and go, 'Oh my God, that's my mother.'

I've been to many funerals of funny people, and they're some of the funniest days you'll ever have, because the emotions run high.

I was offered 'Pretty Woman.' I was offered 'Big' and 'Dead Poets Society.' But what was important to me in those years was to make movies, to make these Albert Brooks movies.

My mom was a professional. My dad and mom met each other in a movie called 'New Faces of 1937.' My mom went under the name Thelma Leeds, and she did a few movies, and she was really a great singer, and when she married my dad and started to have a family, she sang at parties.

Movies are an expensive business.

By the way, movies are like sporting events in that you're as good as the movie you're in. You can sit in a room for 20 years and go do a movie and you can just kill in it and you move to the head of the line again. By the same token, you can do five movies a year and if they're dreck, it's nothing.

My dad died right after performing at the Friars' roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I have that tape somewhere. There's still a lot of good jokes in there. I mean, that was 1958.

There've been a few mother-daughter movies that are somewhat realistic. But the mother-son movies are more comical than realistic: 'Throw Momma from the Train,' 'Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot.' You don't sit in the dark and go, 'Oh my God, that's my mother.'

I don't want to be the one to break it to you, but the future ain't that funny.

I made my living in comedy, but I'm not a silly person. I've got all these sides to me. Even in my movies that I've written myself, the characters sometimes border on great anger or nutsiness or other kinds of behavior. I'm not just doing fart jokes for two hours.

All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that's all people know how to do when they're improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other.

Even in my comedies, I don't take anger as a joke. I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it. One of the things I like about a character: I always think it's fascinating when a character can turn on a dime and go from one emotion to another. I like watching that.

I was offered 'Pretty Woman.' I was offered 'Big' and 'Dead Poets Society.' But what was important to me in those years was to make movies, to make these Albert Brooks movies.