Neil Simon famous quotes

If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.
-- Neil Simon

#Pain #Positivity #Born

Once you've opened yourself up, it's best to go all the way.
-- Neil Simon

#Way

I got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches. Its either very new cheese or very old meat. - Oscar Madison, from The Odd Couple
-- Neil Simon

#Couple #Green #Oscars

I don't use computers... I'm someone who needs to see the page right away in my hand.
-- Neil Simon

#Hands #Pages #Needs

I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you'll be a person worthy of your own respects.
-- Neil Simon

#Believe #Moving #Effort

You get attached to the way you write, and I'm attached to notebooks. That's where I really write the plays. Just two or three pages at a time, then I transfer to the typewriter and rewrite while I type.
-- Neil Simon

#Notebook #Writing #Typewriters

I love living. I have some problems with my life, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far.
-- Neil Simon

#Inspirational #Attitude #Problem

Writers feel like a middleman, standing with pen in hand over the page. A force greater than me stands above telling me what to write. That may sound romantic, but that's how it feels.
-- Neil Simon

#Writing #Hands #May

If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
-- Neil Simon

#Motivational #Risk

I don't want to restrict the life of a play to a particular production. The original actors might leave after the first six months, and I want the play to last 30 or 40 years. You write for the character, not the actor on the stage.
-- Neil Simon

#Character #Writing #Years

Take care of him. And make him feel important. And if you can do that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage. Like two out of every ten couples.
-- Neil Simon

#Inspirational #Marriage #Wedding

I go to see plays all the time, and whenever I see Chekhov, I'm amazed at how this Russian play strikes home to me living 100 years later in New York City. I'm drawn to him because of his way with characters and their relationships with each other.
-- Neil Simon

#New York #Character #Home

Once you start compromising your thoughts, you're a candidate for mediocrity.
-- Neil Simon

#Mediocrity #Compromise

I much prefer writing an original movie with the screen in mind to transferring a play to the screen.
-- Neil Simon

#Writing #Play #Mind

I don’t like writing for comedians. I like writing for actors. The best comedians are the best actors.
-- Neil Simon

#Writing #Comedian #Actors

I don't like losing the words, as you have to, when I'm asked to turn a play into a movie. It's not a matter of ego . . . I'm just better able to create the character for an audience through words rather than through actions.
-- Neil Simon

#Character #Play #Ego

Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.
-- Neil Simon

#Art #Writing #Thinking

I never write a play with an eye to film.
-- Neil Simon

#Eye #Writing #Play

Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It's almost a form of meditation- an investigation of my own life.
-- Neil Simon

#Writing #Meditation #World

A lot of your personality is formed before you're 12, obviously, but only a few of my plays use characters from my childhood. The more mature plays are affected only by my adult experiences.
-- Neil Simon

#Character #Play #Childhood

Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we'll get some fluid and embalm each other.
-- Neil Simon

#Funny #Sarcastic #Party

It's always painful when you're writing memoirs because you've got to go through the dark places, but it gives you a chance to find out the person you really are, not the person you thought you were.
-- Neil Simon

#Writing #Dark #Giving

When its 100 degrees in New York, it's 72 in Los Angeles. When its 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it's still 72. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and only 72 in Los Angeles.
-- Neil Simon

#New York #Interesting #People

I don't like dating or just living with a woman. I like to create a relationship, a marriage. And almost all of my marriages have involved children, so I'm really a family man as well.
-- Neil Simon

#Children #Men #Dating

Never underestimate the stimulation of eccentricity.
-- Neil Simon

#Underestimate #Stimulation

Goldie Hawn is funny, sexy, beautiful, talented, intelligent, warm, and consistently sunny. Other than that, she doesn't impress me at all.
-- Neil Simon

#Beautiful #Sexy #Intelligent

There's no such thing as a sure thing. That's why they call it gambling.
-- Neil Simon

#Gambling #Risk #Sure Thing

You must realize that honorary degrees are given generally to people whose SAT scores were too low to get them into schools the regular way. As a matter of fact, it was my SAT scores that led me into my present vocation in life, comedy.
-- Neil Simon

#School #People #Degrees

He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie.
-- Neil Simon

#Humorous #Nervous #Belts

Don't listen to those who say, you taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today.
-- Neil Simon

#Today #Chance #Bigs

Money brings some happiness. But after a certain point, it just brings more money.
-- Neil Simon

#More Money #Certain

I understand. You work very hard two days a week and you need a five-day weekend. That's normal.
-- Neil Simon

#Work #Weekend #Two

It looks different when you're sober; I thought I had twice as much furniture.
-- Neil Simon

#Drinking #Different #Looks

New York is not Mecca. It just smells like it.
-- Neil Simon

#New York #Smell #Mecca

Talent is the gift plus the passion - a desire to succeed so intense that no force on earth can stop it.
-- Neil Simon

#Sports #Passion #Desire

There are two million interesting people in New York and only seventy-eight in Los Angeles.
-- Neil Simon

#New York #Two #Eight

Sudden money is going from zero to two hundred dollars a week. The rest doesn't count.
-- Neil Simon

#Money #Zero #Two

Sports is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending.
-- Neil Simon

#Sports #Time #Matter

Evan Handler's new book is simply wonderful. He pulls you inside his life, and you come out his very close friend.
-- Neil Simon

#Book #Wonderful #Close Friends

I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.
-- Neil Simon

#Laughing #Loud

Give your mind a chance to travel through foreign languages.
-- Neil Simon

#Giving #Mind #Chance

The body of a young woman is God's greatest achievement...Of course, He could have built it to last longer but you can't have everything.
-- Neil Simon

#Women #Achievement #Body

People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?
-- Neil Simon

#Awards #People #Mechanic