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

The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character.

He who hesitates is poor.

Immortality is a by-product of good work.

As far as songwriters, I’ve always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.

There’s an army story in me, and I think there’s a WWII Brooks film somewhere.

I know how to make it a great musical. I’ve got to. It’s like I’ve got to see it on stage.

I like Chris Rock. He’s dangerous.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.