A biography for Mel Brookshasn’t been written yet.
“I'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all.”
“I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.”
“You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself.”
“I like Chris Rock. He's dangerous.”
“If Shaw and Einstein couldn't beat death, what chance have I got? Practically none.”
“Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you've gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.”
“As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.”
“There's an army story in me, and I think there's a WWII Brooks film somewhere.”
“No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.”
“I was in the army, and to me it was like a newsreel.”
“All short women have a delayed fuse. Marry a taller woman: My wife was an inch or two taller than me; it's a sign of security.”
“A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.”
“I wish I was better looking.”
“Humor is just another defense against the universe.”
“We rest our case on the production numbers.”
“I don't believe in this business of being behind, better to be in front.”
“But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality.”
“Immortality is a by-product of good work.”
“I love writing songs. I'm a songwriter.”
“Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.”