Mel Brooks quotes

Born
June 28, 1926, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Occupation
Actor, director, comedian.

Mel Brooks is an American actor, director and comedian.

Movies
Spaceballs (1987)

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
– Mel Brooks

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.
– Mel Brooks

I’m rather secular. I’m basically Jewish. But I think I’m Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all.
– Mel Brooks

Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way. He was big in size and created big laughter and joy.
– Mel Brooks

A lot of music is mathematics. It’s balance.
– Mel Brooks

All short women have a delayed fuse. Marry a taller woman: My wife was an inch or two taller than me; it’s a sign of security.
– Mel Brooks

Immortality is a by-product of good work.
– Mel Brooks

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.
– Mel Brooks

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.
– Mel Brooks

If you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy and colorful and lively.
– Mel Brooks

Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.
– Mel Brooks

If presidents can’t do it to their wives, they do it to their country.
– Mel Brooks

I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.
– Mel Brooks

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
– Mel Brooks

Well, just being stupid and politically incorrect doesn’t work. You can be politically incorrect if you’re smart.
– Mel Brooks

I loved Westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films.
– Mel Brooks

But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality.
– Mel Brooks

I wish I was better looking.
– Mel Brooks

Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you’ve gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.
– Mel Brooks

We rest our case on the production numbers.
– Mel Brooks

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
– Mel Brooks

A brushstroke of vanity is good to add into the mix, to balance your timidity. We’re all blessed with a lot of timidity and a lot of worry and anxiety, and vanity is a good antidote.
– Mel Brooks

We want to get people laughing; we don’t want to offend anybody.
– Mel Brooks

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.
– Mel Brooks

Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.
– Mel Brooks

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.
– Mel Brooks

Humor is just another defense against the universe.
– Mel Brooks

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love.
– Mel Brooks

I was in the army, and to me it was like a newsreel.
– Mel Brooks