Woody Allen - Life Quotes

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The meaning of life is that nobody knows the meaning of life.

Woody Allen
I'm twelve years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons.

Woody Allen
In life, one is entitled to a side dish of either coleslaw or potato salad, and the choice must be made in terror, with the knowledge that not only is our time on earth limited but most kitchens close at ten.

Woody Allen
The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless, what can be done about alphabet soup?

Woody Allen
I can't with any conscience argue for New York with anyone. It's like Calcutta. But I love the city in an emotional, irrational way, like loving your mother or your father even though they're a drunk or a thief. I've loved the city my whole life - to me, it's like a great woman.

Woody Allen
I should stop ruining my life searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.

Woody Allen
There's a speech I had to cut out of [the 1979 film] Manhattan and plan to get into the next film, where my character says that the metaphor for life is a concentration camp. I do believe that.

Woody Allen
You can't control life. It doesn't wind up perfectly. Only... only art you can control. Art and masturbation. Two areas in which I am an absolute expert.

Woody Allen
This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.

Woody Allen
I recently turned sixty. Practically a third of my life is over.

Woody Allen
My love life is terrible. The last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.

Woody Allen
Not only does my play [Honeymoon Motel] have no redeeming social value, it has no entertainment value. I wrote this sprightly little one-acter only to test out my new paper shredder. If there is any positive message at all in the narrative it is that life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty.

Woody Allen
I made the statement years ago which is often quoted that 80 percent of life is showing up. People used to always say to me that they wanted to write a play, they wanted to write a movie, they wanted to write a novel, and the couple of people that did it were 80 percent of the way to having something happen. All the other people struck out without ever getting that pack. They couldn't do it, that's why they don't accomplish a thing, they don't do the thing, so once you do it, if you actually write your film script, or write your novel, you are more than half way towards something good happening. So that I was say [sic] my biggest life lesson that has worked. All others have failed me.

Woody Allen
Early in life I was visited by the bluebird of anxiety.

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

Woody Allen
Life is hard for insects. And don't think mice are having any fun either.

Woody Allen
I think people should mate for life. Like pigeons, or Catholics.

Woody Allen
I feel that life is—is divided up into the horrible and the miserable.

Woody Allen
A lot of things have happened in my private life recently that I thought we could review tonight.

Woody Allen