“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.”

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin.

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

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

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

I don’t have a mission. I don’t have a torch to burn.

These men both publicly and privately have done so much for me. Without Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick I would be living in a little motel just around the corner here, trying to make ends meet.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

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.

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

If Shaw and Einstein couldn’t beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.

I love writing songs. I’m a songwriter.

If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win.

When you come to Germany as a Jew you have an uneasy feeling, but I’ve always felt okay in Berlin.

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

I’m still a horse that can run. I may not be able to win the Derby, but what do you do when you retire? People retire and they vegetate. They go away and they dry up.

Humor is just another defense against the universe.