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

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

"I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front."

"Humor is just another defense against the universe."

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

"If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"We want to get people laughing; we don't want to offend anybody."

"As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes."

"We rest our case on the production numbers."

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

"If presidents can't do it to their wives, they do it to their country."

"Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive."

"Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you."

"He who hesitates is poor."

"I only direct in self-defense."

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