Mel Brooks Quotes

Photo of actor Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks Quotes

One of the few to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy, Mel Brooks is an American writer, comedian, actor and producer. The American Film Institute has listed three Brooks films, ‘Blazing Saddles’, ‘The Producers’, and ‘Young Frankenstein’, among the funniest of all American films. He recently updated and produced his original 1968 film, ‘The Producers’, on Broadway. Starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, it earned 12 Tony’s. In 2005, he wrote the screenplay for the 2nd movie version based on the Broadway show, which starred Will Ferrell, Uma Thurman, and once again, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.

Image: Photo of actor Mel Brooks

“If you can fail between the ages of twenty and thirty, it’s fabulous. Too much early success and the rest of your life becomes a measure of repeating it. If they had praised ‘The Potato Eater’‘, Van Gogh never would have painted ‘The Starry Night’.”

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

“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.”

“He who hesitates is poor.”

“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.”

“Humor is just another defense against the universe.”

– Mel Brooks  (1926-)

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