Albert Brooks famous quotes

Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?
-- Albert Brooks

#Insecurity #World #Desperation

When I was younger, I wasn't concentrating on good days. I was managing a career and trying to have a good year. It would always 'lead' to something, which never leads to anything except death, where everything leads to. And then as I got older, and then I had my kids and everything, I began to appreciate a great Wednesday.
-- Albert Brooks

#Good Day #Kids #Years

Don't worry, and don't kick yourself forever. Just take the opportunities when they come.
-- Albert Brooks

#Fun #Opportunity #Worry

I was in Kashmir last weekend. Went to visit one of my sweaters.
-- Albert Brooks

#Weekend #Sweaters #Kashmir

I'm not a big fan of the post-Armageddon stories, where Denzel Washington is walking around in a torn coat.
-- Albert Brooks

#Fans #Stories #Coats

I guess 'The Player' was a pretty good L.A. movie. And 'Chinatown.' Was there ever a better L.A. movie about a certain period in L.A.? That was terrific.
-- Albert Brooks

#Player #Chinatown #Periods

I've always liked to think ahead. Not stupid-far ahead. A hundred years doesn't interest me. But 20 years interests me, and more for what happens to humans as opposed to things.
-- Albert Brooks

#Stupid #Thinking #Years

I've been to many funerals of funny people, and they're some of the funniest days you'll ever have, because the emotions run high.
-- Albert Brooks

#Running #People #Funeral

I've done performances in movies that I was immensely proud of and the movies didn't take off like a rocket at Cape Canaveral, it didn't take off.
-- Albert Brooks

#Capes #Done #Proud

If I'm going to act in someone's movie, I want the movie to be interesting and be able to get a couple of solid doubles.
-- Albert Brooks

#Couple #Interesting #Want

Be generous and you can be the best person who ever lived.
-- Albert Brooks

#Being The Best #Persons #Generous

Movies are an expensive business.
-- Albert Brooks

There's always the standard six people you can hire that have played all these villains in Hollywood. Instinctively, when they come on screen, you know what's going to happen. You don't know the story, but you know what they do.
-- Albert Brooks

#People #Hollywood #Stories

If you look at the best-seller list for American fiction, they're all sequels to detective stories or stories about hunting serial killers. That's what's called American fiction these days.
-- Albert Brooks

#Hunting #Serial Killer #Looks

I've always been the king of silence. I've always been a minimalist comedian. I've taken my influence from Jack Benny, who was the king of that I've always done 'less is more.'
-- Albert Brooks

#Kings #Taken #Silence

I'm a member of the Academy, but I don't know who all the other Academy members are. It's not like a politician who knows who is in the Iowa caucus.
-- Albert Brooks

#Iowa #Politician #Members

I don't think the goal is, 'How big a star did you ever become?' I think the goal is, 'Were you able to express yourself?'
-- Albert Brooks

#Stars #Thinking #Goal

I take anything other than 'you big pig!' as a compliment.
-- Albert Brooks

#Pigs #Compliment #Bigs

When I die, if the word 'thong' appears in the first or second sentence of my obituary, I've screwed up.
-- Albert Brooks

#Firsts #Thongs #Screwed Up

If we had 3 million exhibitionists and only one voyeur, nobody could make any money.
-- Albert Brooks

How many people didn't get a part who would have been better than the person who got the part? Thousands.
-- Albert Brooks

#People #Persons

I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.
-- Albert Brooks

#Laughter #Thinking

I'm not Elvis. I don't get chased by paparazzi.
-- Albert Brooks

#Paparazzi

I can't not put humor in a book.
-- Albert Brooks

#Book

Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'
-- Albert Brooks

#Father #Comedian #Age

I cast unusual people in my movies.
-- Albert Brooks

#People #Unusual #Casts

I never wanted to be a director.
-- Albert Brooks

#Directors #Wanted

I like movies about failing.
-- Albert Brooks

#Failing

I come from the place where I am thinking 'I have put my blood on the pages.'
-- Albert Brooks

#Thinking #Blood #Pages

I just like making people laugh, and buried in that I like to bring up topics and start discussions.
-- Albert Brooks

#People #Laughing #Topics

I don't want to be the one to break it to you, but the future ain't that funny.
-- Albert Brooks

#Want #Break

Most entertainment is trying to get you. It's tested, like toothpaste.
-- Albert Brooks

#Trying #Entertainment #Toothpaste

All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that's all people know how to do when they're improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other.
-- Albert Brooks

#Yelling #People #Comedy

Well, you know, with every character, if you're going to expose yourself, you've got to figure out every detail that you're going to play. So there's no character that you can just go put on his shirt and be fully prepared.
-- Albert Brooks

#Character #Play #Details

My friend Harry Nilsson used to say the definition of an artist was someone who rode way ahead of the herd and was sort of the lookout. Now you don't have to be that, to be an artist. You can be right smack-dab in the middle of the herd. If you are, you'll be the richest.
-- Albert Brooks

#Artist #Dabs #Definitions

When I audition, I understand what it takes and the insecurities that come with it. If I do anything, I put actors at ease. I used to tell directors who weren't actors, the best thing they could do was take an acting class for a couple of months. Just to understand.
-- Albert Brooks

#Couple #Class #Insecurity

You know, I became a director out of necessity. I was writing comedies, and I couldn't find anybody to deliver it correctly.
-- Albert Brooks

#Writing #Directors #Comedy

You never do a movie and not want it to work. You accept whatever it is. You have to, but nobody in their right mind would not want the movie to be getting talked about at the end of the year.
-- Albert Brooks

#Years #Mind #Want

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.
-- Albert Brooks

#Writing #Magic #Want

Nobody will leave any place unless they're forced out. That's the nature of humans. Once you're there, you're there. I've never seen anybody get up voluntarily and leave any place.
-- Albert Brooks

#Humans

I, sort of, got into comedy accidentally, and it got bigger than I wanted it to.
-- Albert Brooks

#Comedy #Bigger #Wanted

One of the things I like about a character: I always think it's fascinating when a character can turn on a dime and go from one emotion to another. I like watching that.
-- Albert Brooks

#Character #Thinking #Dimes

Once you sign on as an actor, you know, you don't go to the editing room, you don't see how they cut, you don't see how they score, you don't see how they cast the rest of the movie.
-- Albert Brooks

#Cutting #Editing #Actors

When I went to acting school, the kids that got the best grades were the kids that could cry on cue. But it didn't really translate into careers for any of them, because the external is the easy part.
-- Albert Brooks

#School #Kids #Careers

It's interesting when you're part of a group - the Jews, to be exact - that the world has had such problems with.
-- Albert Brooks

#Interesting #Groups #World

Twitter, to me, works if you're funny. Twitter doesn't work as a promotional tool unless you do it very, very, very occasionally.
-- Albert Brooks

#Tools

What's interesting about books that take place in the future, even twenty years in the future, is that many of them are black or white: It's either a utopia or it's misery. The real truth is that there's going to be both things in any future, just like there is now.
-- Albert Brooks

#Real #Book #Years

As an actor, if you're just sitting and staring and you don't know who you are in your own mind, it's vacant. And sometimes the camera is an X-ray machine, it can pick it up.
-- Albert Brooks

#Mind #Rays #Cameras

I've always enjoyed stories that take place in the future but my one disappointment was that the future books described never came. We're not on other planets, there are no flying cars, and the only robots we have in our homes just sweep the floor. So I wanted to write about a future that I thought could really happen. People ask me when I tell them the title of the book, 'Are we all dead?' The good news is, no. We're still here. And I even think the future in my book is strangely hopeful, although I'm sure there will be people who strongly disagree.
-- Albert Brooks

#Disappointment #Book #Home

If anything happens to me, tell every woman I've ever gone with I was talking about her at the end. That way, they'll have to reevaluate me.
-- Albert Brooks

#Talking #Life And Death #Way

It's better to be known by six people for something you're proud of than to be known by sixty million for something you're not.
-- Albert Brooks

#Motivational #People #Proud

Steven Spielberg seems to have wanted to be a director from 13. He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock. He liked to direct it. But, to me, directing is tedious. Especially if you're acting in it. And I'm inherently lazy.
-- Albert Brooks

#Dog #Lazy #Acting

'Drive' came to me because the casting director knew my manager and called and said, 'You've always talked to me about Albert wanting to play the heavy. I think he should read this.' My ears just perked up.
-- Albert Brooks

#Thinking #Play #Directors

You know, when cameras are rolling, improvisation doesn't feel natural. The pressure is too great. You're on a time schedule. You've got 60 crewmen.
-- Albert Brooks

#Cameras #Rolling #Schedules

Twitter is the Devil's playground.
-- Albert Brooks

#Devil #Playgrounds

In my screenplays - from the very beginning I've always used tape. I talk my screenplays. And then have somebody transcribe them.
-- Albert Brooks

#Tape #Used #Screenplays

The whole world is tense. Everybody gets the international news. Theres been no American comedy at all that even remotely addresses the subject in any way. My goal isnt to solve the worlds problems. My character wasnt even able to do his assignment. But the premise of wanting to find out about somebody -- other than the stuff that the CIA will tell you -- theres no hope unless we do that.
-- Albert Brooks

#Character #Goal #News

The world really changed after 9/11, not just in the tragic way, but in every way. So it took me a couple of years to even understand how my art form I could process any of this. When the world changed, eliciting laughter with subjects that were funny to me before 9/11 just didnt seem good enough.
-- Albert Brooks

#Art #Laughter #Couple

Bullfights are hugely popular because you can sit comfortably with a hot dog and possibly watch a man die. It wont be me, but I can sit comfortably and watch it.
-- Albert Brooks

#Dog #Men #Hot

Getting older is a lot of fun. Right up there with chewing glass or putting your hand in a blender.
-- Albert Brooks

#Fun #Glasses #Hands

I'd still like to see 'Survivor' minus the planned show-biz parts. That would be the purest form of show business - I want to see someone so hungry that they eat somebody else's foot.
-- Albert Brooks

#Feet #Would Be #Survivor

I've always been in the middle of making my own movies, so taking acting jobs that take me away from that has been impossible.
-- Albert Brooks

#Jobs #Acting #Impossible

I'm not interesting enough on my own that you'd want to see a film about me.
-- Albert Brooks

#Interesting #Want #Film

If you paint, write, do mosaics, knit - if it's solving that part of your brain saying, 'I need to do this,' you've won.
-- Albert Brooks

#Writing #Brain #Mosaics

It's fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog. But you lift it and buddy you're in for the ride of your life.
-- Albert Brooks

#Block #Real #Fog

A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!
-- Albert Brooks

#Powerful #Anchors #Anxious

I've seen the future! It's a bald-headed man from New York!
-- Albert Brooks

#New York #Men

If you're going to act and do this for a living, you want to play something that the audience didn't expect.
-- Albert Brooks

#Play #Want #Audience