Woody Allen quotes are thought-provoking, memorable and inspiring. From views on society and politics to thoughts on love and life, Woody Allen has a lot to say. In this list we present the 128 best Woody Allen quotes, in no particular order. Let yourself get inspired!
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Woody Allen quotes
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.
— Woody Allen
Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go its pretty damn good.
— Woody Allen
I don’t know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.
— Woody Allen
Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.
— Woody Allen
If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.
— Woody Allen
My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
— Woody Allen
I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories. The horrible are like, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you’re miserable, because that’s very lucky, to be miserable.
— Woody Allen, Annie Hall: Screenplay
Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.
— Woody Allen
You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ.
— Woody Allen
There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life – full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.
— Woody Allen, Annie Hall: Screenplay
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
— Woody Allen, Without Feathers
All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.
— Woody Allen
Honey! Bring down a copy of my will – and an eraser!
— Woody Allen
To you, I’m an atheist.To God, I’m the loyal opposition.
— Woody Allen
God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.
— Woody Allen
I just can’t listen to any more Wagner, you know…I’m starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.
— Woody Allen
I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100.
— Woody Allen
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.
— Woody Allen
I did not marry the first girl that I fell in love with, because there was a tremendous religious conflict, at the time. She was an atheist, and I was an agnostic.
— Woody Allen
Photons have mass? I didn’t even know they were Catholic.
— Woody Allen
If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.
— Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters
My brain? That’s my second favorite organ.
— Woody Allen
I hate reality but it’s still the best place to get a good steak.
— Woody Allen
How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
— Woody Allen
If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.
— Woody Allen
There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?
— Woody Allen
Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in my bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.
— Woody Allen
If it turns out that there is a God…the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever.
— Woody Allen
Because it’s much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine.
— Woody Allen
If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.
— Woody Allen
The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.
— Woody Allen
Death doesn’t really worry me that much, I’m not frightened about it… I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
— Woody Allen
I can’t do anything to death, doctor’s orders.
— Woody Allen
It’s a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to.
— Woody Allen
If Jesus came back and saw what was going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing-up.
— Woody Allen
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
— Woody Allen
I broke up with this girl, and they put me with a psychiatrist who said, ‘Why did you get so depressed, and do all those things you did?’ I said, ‘I wanted this girl and she left me.’And he said, ‘Well, we have to look into that.’And I said, ‘There’s nothing to look into! I wanted her and she left me.’ And he said, ‘Well, why are you feeling so intense?’And I said, ‘Cause I want the girl!’ And he said, ‘What’s underneath it?’ And I said, ‘Nothing!’He said, ‘I’ll have to give you medication.’I said, ‘I don’t want medication! I want the girl!’And he said, ‘We have to work this through.’So, I took a fire extinguisher from the casement and struck him across the back of his neck. And before I knew it, guys from Con Ed had jumper cables in my head and the rest was…
— Woody Allen
There’s nothing like the discovery of an unknown work by a great thinker to set the intellectual community atwitter and cause academics to dart about like those things one sees when looking at a drop of water under a microscope.
— Woody Allen
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank.
— Woody Allen
I love nature, I just don’t want to get any of it on me.
— Woody Allen
I believe people ought to mate for life…like pigeons or Catholics.
— Woody Allen, Manhattan
What is fascinating is that it is physical. You know, that’s one thing about intellectuals, they’ve proved that you can be absolute brilliant and have no idea what’s going on. But on the other hand, the body doesn’t lie, as we now know. Nono, it’ll be great, because all of those ph.Ds are in there, like, discussing modes of alienation, and we’ll be in here quietly humping.
— Woody Allen
The difference between sex and love is that sex relieves tension and love causes it.
— Woody Allen
Is sex dirty? Only when it’s being done right.
— Woody Allen
Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.
— Woody Allen
Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing.
— Woody Allen
I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.
— Woody Allen
The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.
— Woody Allen
Sex between a man and a woman can be wonderful, provided you can get between the right man and the right woman.
— Woody Allen
I’d call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.
— Woody Allen
Having sex is like bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.
— Woody Allen
The most expensive sex is free sex
— Woody Allen
You know how you’re always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it’s real difficult in life
— Woody Allen, Annie Hall: Screenplay
One must have one’s delusions to live. If you look at life too honestly and clearly, life becomes unbearable because it’s a pretty grim enterprise, you will admit.
— Woody Allen
Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka’s.
— Woody Allen, Manhattan
I’m going to kill myself. I should go to Paris and jump off the Eiffel Tower. I’ll be dead. you know, in fact, if I get the Concorde, I could be dead three hours earlier, which would be perfect. Or wait a minute. It — with the time change, I could be alive for six hours in New York but dead three hours in Paris. I could get things done, and I could also be dead.
— Woody Allen
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: Frequently there must be a beverage.
— Woody Allen, Without Feathers
It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better, [Cloquet thought, ] while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
— Woody Allen, Side Effects
David: And you think it can just evaporate? Even if at one time they loved one another?Marx: That’s one of the sad truths of existence. Nothing in this world is permanent. Even the characters created by the great Shakespeare will, in millions of years, cease to exist—when the universe runs its course and the lights go out.
— Woody Allen, Three One-act Plays: Riverside Drive/Old Saybrook/Central Park West
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
— Woody Allen
I like the rain. It washes memories off the sidewalk of life.
— Woody Allen, Manhattan
Just don’t take any class where you have to read BEOWULF.
— Woody Allen
Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat…college
— Woody Allen
We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices…
— Woody Allen, Crimini e misfatti
Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: “At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You’d be surprised how effective it can be.
— Woody Allen
When we played softball, I’d steal second base, feel guilty and go back.
— Woody Allen
bullshit french post-war rationalizing
— Woody Allen
All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.
— Woody Allen
The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife – a depressing thought, particularly for those who bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it’s being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily laying down.
— Woody Allen, Without Feathers
Some guy hit my fender the other day and I said unto him “Be fruitful and multiply.” But not in those words.
— Woody Allen
I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.
— Woody Allen
You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to a hundred.
— Woody Allen
I’m at the stage of life when if a girl says no to me I’m profoundly grateful to her.
— Woody Allen
I’m not the heroic type really. I was beaten up by Quakers.
— Woody Allen
I feel about New York as a child whose father is a bank robber. Not perfect but I still love him.
— Woody Allen
I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers and they are going to make a game out of it.
— Woody Allen
Showing up is eighty percent of life.
— Woody Allen
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
— Woody Allen
I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
— Woody Allen
If you’re not failing you’re not trying anything.
— Woody Allen
The best thing to do is to behave in a manner befitting one’s age. If you are sixteen and under try not to go bald.
— Woody Allen
The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have instead of what you don’t have.
— Woody Allen
How to make God laugh. Tell him your future plans.
— Woody Allen
The worst that you can say about him (God) is that basically he’s an underachiever.
— Woody Allen
You want to make God laugh? Tell him your future plans.
— Woody Allen
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work I want to achieve it through not dying.
— Woody Allen
Ninety percent of living is just showing up.
— Woody Allen
Life doesn’t imitate art it imitates bad television.
— Woody Allen
I do not believe in an afterlife although I am bringing a change of underwear.
— Woody Allen
Another good thing about being poor is that when you are seventy your children will not have you declared legally insane in order to gain control of your estate.
— Woody Allen
Showing up is 80 percent of life.
— Woody Allen
If I had my life to live over I wish I could be a great pianist or something.
— Woody Allen
Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
— Woody Allen
I am going to give my psychoanalyst one more year then I’m going to Lourdes.
— Woody Allen
Those modern analysts they charge so much! In my day for five marks Freud himself would treat you. For ten marks he would treat you and press your pants. For fifteen marks Freud would let you treat him – that included a choice of any two vegetables.
— Woody Allen
If only God would give me a clear sign like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.
— Woody Allen
If I could only see one miracle just one miracle. Like a burning bush or the seas part or my uncle Sasha pick up a check.
— Woody Allen
Is sex dirty? Only if it is done right.
— Woody Allen
Is sex dirty? Only if it’s done right.
— Woody Allen
If there is reincarnation I’d like to come back as Warren Beatty’s fingertips.
— Woody Allen
I don’t believe in God. Just try getting a plumber on the weekend.
— Woody Allen
I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam I looked into the soul of the boy next to me.
— Woody Allen
Marriage is the death of hope.
— Woody Allen
I think being funny is not anyone’s first choice.
— Woody Allen
I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
— Woody Allen
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
— Woody Allen
As the poet said, ‘Only God can make a tree, ‘ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
— Woody Allen
I am two with nature.
— Woody Allen
I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.
— Woody Allen
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
— Woody Allen
I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
— Woody Allen
On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .
— Woody Allen
I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
— Woody Allen
The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.
— Woody Allen
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.
— Woody Allen
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
— Woody Allen
I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.
— Woody Allen
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.
— Woody Allen
Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday.
— Woody Allen
If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.
— Woody Allen
If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.
— Woody Allen
Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in the bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.
— Woody Allen
I failed to make the chess team because of my height.
— Woody Allen
I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
— Woody Allen
I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.
— Woody Allen
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.
— Woody Allen
His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.
— Woody Allen
I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.
— Woody Allen
Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.
— Woody Allen
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