"I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track. But yes, I don't like to get Maudlin. And I have a tendency towards it."

"I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this."

"I don't mean to sound - I don't want it to come out funny, but I don't like show business. I love - I love acting in films. I love it."

"And in 'Frisco Kid' and in 'The Woman in Red' I had to ride badly. Then you have to really ride well in order to ride badly."

"I love acting, especially if it's a fantasy of some kind, where it's not just realistic, it's not naturalism."

"So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it."

"Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do - sing, dance, joke about - then they take that as love."

"What I learned from Mel Brooks was audacity - in performance as in life. Maybe you go too far, but try it."

"I'm going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito."

"I had a unique form: a Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."

"I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track."

"I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while."

"I never thought of it as God. I didn't know what to call it. I don't believe in devils, but demons I do because everyone at one time or another has some kind of a demon, even if you call it by another name, that drives them."

"My mother was suffering every day of her life, and what right did I have to be happy if she was suffering? So whenever I got happy about something, I felt the need to cut it off, and the only way to cut it off was to pray. 'Forgive me Lord.' For what, I didn't know."

"Whatever simplicity I've achieved in writing, I think I owe most of it to Jean Renoir and Hemingway: simple, declarative sentences. I've read some very good writers, but the sentences were so long that I've forgotten what the point was."

"Success is a terrible thing and a wonderful thing. If you can enjoy it, it's wonderful. If it starts eating away at you, and they're waiting for more from me, or what can I do to top this, then you're in trouble. Just do what you love. That's all I want to do."

"My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character."

"I love the art of acting, and I love film, because you always have another chance if you want it. You know, if we - if this isn't going well, you can't say - well, you could say - let's stop. Let's start over again, Gene, because you were too nervous."

"Sidney Poitier was directing a film called 'Hanky Panky.' And he said, 'Do you want to come with me to New York to see Gilda Radner in 'Lunch Hour' on Broadway? I said, 'I don't need to see her, I love her. I've wanted to write something for her for a long time. So it's OK by me.'"