Woody Allen

Allan Stewart Konigsberg

1 December 1935

An American film director, screenwriter, actor, author, jazz musician, comedian and playwright whose career spans more than 50 years.

By the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into dramatic material influenced by European art cinema during the 1970s. Critic Roger Ebert described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema."

As director, writer, actor

• What's New Pussycat? (1965)
• What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
• Casino Royale (1967)
• Don't Drink the Water (1969)
• Take the Money and Run (1969)
• Bananas (1971)
• Play It Again, Sam (1972)
• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
• Sleeper (1973)
• Love and Death (1975)
• The Front (1976)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Interiors (1978)
• Manhattan (1979)
• Stardust Memories (1980)
• A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)
• Zelig (1983)
• Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
• The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
• Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
• Radio Days (1987)
• September (1987)
• King Lear (1987)
• Another Woman (1988)
• New York Stories (1989)
• Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
• Alice (1990)
• Scenes from a Mall (1991)
• Shadows and Fog (1991)
• Husbands and Wives (1992)
• Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
• Bullets over Broadway (1994)
• Don't Drink the Water (1994)
• Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
• Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
• Deconstructing Harry (1997)
• Celebrity (1998)
• The Impostors (1998)
• Antz (1998)
• Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
• Company Man (2000)
• Small Time Crooks (2000)
• Picking Up the Pieces (2000)
• The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
• Hollywood Ending (2002)
• Anything Else (2003)
• Melinda and Melinda (2004)
• Match Point (2005)
• Scoop (2006)
• Cassandra's Dream (2007)
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
• Whatever Works (2009)
• You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
• Midnight in Paris (2011)
• Paris Manhattan (2012)
• To Rome with Love (2012)
• Blue Jasmine (2013)
• Fading Gigolo (2014)
• Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
• Irrational Man (2015)
• Café Society (2016)
• Crisis in Six Scenes (2016)

Quotations

* * *

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

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The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.

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Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.

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If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.

* * *

To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.

* * *

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

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I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

* * *

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

* * *

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

* * *

I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

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There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

* * *

I don't believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

* * *

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

* * *

Tradition is the illusion of permanance.

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Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.

* * *

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

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I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.

* * *

If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.

* * *

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?

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I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government.

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I've never been an intellectual but I have this look.

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You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.

* * *

In my house I'm the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.

* * *

His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.

* * *

Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.

* * *

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

* * *

In California, they don't throw their garbage away - they make it into TV shows.

* * *

I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.

* * *

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

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I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

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Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.

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Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

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I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.

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Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

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I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.

* * *

Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea.

* * *

It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

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