Woody Allen, born Allen Stewart Konigsberg, is a prolific American filmmaker, writer, actor, and comedian, known for his witty humor and neurotic characters. Emerging in the 1960s as a stand-up comedian, he transitioned into filmmaking, directing over 50 movies. Allen’s work often explores themes of love, relationships, philosophy, and the human condition. His iconic films include “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” and “Midnight in Paris,” earning him numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards. However, his career has been overshadowed by controversy, notably allegations of sexual abuse by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, which he denies. This has led to public scrutiny and a complicated legacy for Allen. Despite the controversy, his impact on cinema and his unique comedic style remain influential, shaping the landscape of American filmmaking for decades.
Woody Allen Quotes
1. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
— Woody Allen
2. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”
— Woody Allen
3. “The only thing standing between me and greatness is me.”
— Woody Allen
4. “The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.”
— Woody Allen
5. “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”
— Woody Allen
6. “I’m not anti-social. I’m just not social.”
— Woody Allen
7. “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
— Woody Allen
8. “Just showing up is half the battle.”
— Woody Allen
9. “The only love that lasts is unrequited love.”
— Woody Allen
10. “If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.”
— Woody Allen
11. “Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.”
— Woody Allen
12. “If 90% of success in life is showing up, the other 10% depends on what you’re showing up for.”
— Woody Allen
13. “Life’s hard, then you die.”
— Woody Allen
14. “Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage.”
— Woody Allen
15. “The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”
— Woody Allen
16. “Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.”
— Woody Allen
17. “The heart wants what it wants.”
— Woody Allen
18. “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
— Woody Allen
19. “I don’t know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.”
— Woody Allen
20. “In my house I’m the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.”
— Woody Allen
21. “I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100.”
— Woody Allen
22. “All i have in my life is my imagination.”
— Woody Allen
23. “Just because youre paranoid doesnt mean they arent out to get you.”
— Woody Allen
24. “Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.”
— Woody Allen
25. “Showing up is 80 percent of life.”
— Woody Allen
26. “Paranoia is knowing all the facts.”
— Woody Allen
27. “I’ve become the person I’ve always hated, but I’m happier.”
— Woody Allen
28. “Is sex dirty? Only when it’s being done right.”
— Woody Allen
29. “We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to despair, the other to destruction. Let’s hope we make the right choice.”
— Woody Allen
30. “Error, no keyboard. Press F1 to continue.”
— Woody Allen
31. “There are three rings involved with marriage. The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.”
— Woody Allen
32. “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.”
— Woody Allen
33. “Ninety percent of success in life is just showing up.”
— Woody Allen
34. “I never start editing a film until it’s completely shot; I don’t edit along the way, ever. When it’s finished I come in here and we start with reel one, scene one and start editing shot by shot by shot until we’re finished.”
— Woody Allen
35. “The study of economy usually shows us that the best time for purchase was last year.”
— Woody Allen
36. “Those who can’t do, teach!”
— Woody Allen
37. “What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?”
— Woody Allen
38. “Why ruin a good story with the truth?”
— Woody Allen
39. “In my next life I want to live backwards. Start out dead and finish off as an orgasm.”
— Woody Allen
40. “Don’t worry, I know almost exactly what I’m doing.”
— Woody Allen
41. “The most important words in the English language are not ‘I love you’ but ‘it’s benign.’”
— Woody Allen
42. “Men learn to love the woman they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they fall in love with.”
— Woody Allen
43. “I hate the beach. I hate the sun. I’m pale and I’m redheaded. I don’t tan – I stroke!”
— Woody Allen
44. “Where did we come from? Where are we going? Is there possibility of a group discount?”
— Woody Allen
45. “Problems are like toilet paper. You pull on one and ten more come.”
— Woody Allen
46. “I love the rain – it washes memories off the sidewalk of life.”
— Woody Allen
47. “What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”
— Woody Allen
48. “My ex-wife was a philosophy major at NYU. Yeah, she and I used to have deep philosophical discussions where she would prove that I didn’t exist.”
— Woody Allen
49. “Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.”
— Woody Allen
50. “Eternity is really long, especially near the end.”
— Woody Allen
51. “I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.”
— Woody Allen
52. “I think crime pays. The hours are good, you travel a lot.”
— Woody Allen
53. “I didn’t believe in reincarnation in my past life, and I still don’t.”
— Woody Allen
54. “God is either cruel or incompetent.”
— Woody Allen
55. “If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.”
— Woody Allen
56. “I don’t want to live forever through my work. I want to live forever by not dying.”
— Woody Allen
57. “God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.”
— Woody Allen
58. “Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle.”
— Woody Allen
59. “I believe that sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it’s fantastic.”
— Woody Allen
60. “Why not? Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain – and this is a chance for something special.”
— Woody Allen
61. “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
62. “Subjectivity is objective.”
— Woody Allen
63. “It is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o’clock.”
— Woody Allen
64. “There’s nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can’t cure.”
— Woody Allen
65. “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.”
— Woody Allen
66. “I’m twelve years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don’t understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons.”
— Woody Allen
67. “Love is too weak a word for what I feel – I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F’s, yes.”
— Woody Allen
68. “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.”
— Woody Allen
69. “The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.”
— Woody Allen
70. “We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices…”
— Woody Allen
71. “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”
— Woody Allen
72. “Even if God exists, he’s done such a terrible job, it’s a wonder people don’t get together and file a class action suit against him.”
— Woody Allen
73. “Money is not everything, but it is better than having one’s health.”
— Woody Allen
74. “No, I don’t think you’re paranoid. I think you’re the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.”
— Woody Allen
75. “Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.”
— Woody Allen
76. “I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.”
— Woody Allen
77. “My brain? That’s my second favorite organ.”
— Woody Allen
78. “Marriage is the death of hope.”
— Woody Allen
79. “I hate reality but it’s still the best place to get a good steak.”
— Woody Allen
80. “All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.”
— Woody Allen
81. “The best things in life are censored.”
— Woody Allen
82. “To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.”
— Woody Allen
83. “I am two with nature.”
— Woody Allen
84. “I wish I could think of a positive point to leave you with. Will you take two negative points?”
— Woody Allen
85. “I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want.”
— Woody Allen
86. “She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater and her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.”
— Woody Allen
87. “If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”
— Woody Allen
88. “Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.”
— Woody Allen
89. “A stockbroker is someone who invests other people’s money until it is all gone.”
— Woody Allen
90. “See, I never gain an ounce, because, you know, my anxiety acts like aerobics.”
— Woody Allen
91. “Of all human weakness obsession is the most dangerous. And the silliest.”
— Woody Allen
92. “There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”
— Woody Allen
93. “Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.”
— Woody Allen
94. “You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ.”
— Woody Allen
95. “And Nietzche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we lived we’re going to live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I’ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again.”
— Woody Allen
96. “If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.”
— Woody Allen
97. “I don’t know what I’m doing, but my incompetence has never stopped my enthusiasm.”
— Woody Allen
98. “None of the arts are any good unless you really are great at them.”
— Woody Allen
99. “Life is unresolved, confusing, bewildering, puzzling, ambiguous. You don’t really know what’s going to happen. The future is uncertain for everybody.”
— Woody Allen
100. “Jazz is a big thing with me. It’s a very big passion of mine, to play it. I’m an amateur musician and I love everything about it. I was obsessed with jazz when I was 15 years old and I know a lot about it because I’ve loved it so much.”
— Woody Allen
101. “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.”
— Woody Allen
102. “Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough. As you climb the ladder of success, be sure it’s leaning against the right building. Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
— Woody Allen
103. “The last time I was inside a woman was when I went to the Statue of Liberty.”
— Woody Allen
104. “Between the Pope and air conditioning, I’d choose air conditioning.”
— Woody Allen
105. “Our love, our love will last forever. It’s forever but it just doesn’t work. That’s why it will always be romantic because it can not be complete.”
— Woody Allen
106. “All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.”
— Woody Allen
107. “Today I saw a red and yellow sunset and thought, how insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday too, and it rained.”
— Woody Allen
108. “If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.”
— Woody Allen
109. “My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.”
— Woody Allen
110. “I don’t know enough to be incompetent.”
— Woody Allen
111. “My films are a form of psychoanalysis, except that it is I who am paid, which changes everything.”
— Woody Allen
112. “I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.”
— Woody Allen
113. “Show business is dog eat dog. It’s worse than dog eat dog. It’s dog doesn’t return dog’s phone calls.”
— Woody Allen
114. “Your still searching for me in every woman. You’ll always seek to duplicate what we had. You know it.”
— Woody Allen
115. “Marriage is like mushrooms: we notice too late if they are good or bad.”
— Woody Allen
116. “You’re still in love’ ‘No I’m not, I’m not She’ll always be a part of me, and she’s an important person in my life but for the two of us something wasn’t working.’ ‘What element?’ ‘We never found out.”
— Woody Allen
117. “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
— Woody Allen
118. “You know, it’s one thing about intellectuals, they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what’s going on.”
— Woody Allen
119. “I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody’s.”
— Woody Allen
120. “Reality may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it’s still the only place where you can get a decent steak.”
— Woody Allen
121. “He’s a politician. That’s a notch below child molester.”
— Woody Allen
122. “Nothing like a little post-traumatic stress disorder to make your day complete.”
— Woody Allen
123. “Achilles only had an Achilles heel. I have an entire Achilles body.”
— Woody Allen
124. “Better not think too much. Relying more on the body: it is more trustworthy.”
— Woody Allen
125. “Isn’t all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed?”
— Woody Allen
126. “In California, they don’t throw their garbage away – they make it into TV shows.”
— Woody Allen
127. “I believe in sex and death- two experiences that come once in a lifetime.”
— Woody Allen
128. “Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know?”
— Woody Allen
129. “When you are dead, it is hard to find the light switch.”
— Woody Allen
130. “I’m short enough and ugly enough to succeed on my own.”
— Woody Allen
131. “I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.”
— Woody Allen
132. “If you aren’t failing every now and then, you’re probably playing it too safe.”
— Woody Allen
133. “I know what I think but I don’t know how to put it into words. Maybe I could get a little bit drunk and dance it for you.”
— Woody Allen
134. “Honey! Bring down a copy of my will – and an eraser!”
— Woody Allen
135. “I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.”
— Woody Allen
136. “Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”
— Woody Allen
137. “Remember, if you smoke after sex you’re doing it too fast.”
— Woody Allen
138. “I had an IQ test. The results came back negative.”
— Woody Allen
139. “Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words.”
— Woody Allen
140. “I read in self-defense.”
— Woody Allen
141. “My father owned a small piece of land. He carried it with him wherever he went.”
— Woody Allen
142. “Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.”
— Woody Allen
143. “I love nature, I just don’t want to get any of it on me.”
— Woody Allen
144. “I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
— Woody Allen
145. “The food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.”
— Woody Allen
146. “Well, trouble’s my middle name. Actually, my middle name is Marion, but I don’t want you spreading that around.”
— Woody Allen
147. “When you travel around the country, you see what a tough town New York is: rude, competitive, a town where good, logical ideas are ignored in favor of unworkable ones. And yet, all these other towns are so dead and boring compared to New York.”
— Woody Allen
148. “When I am in New York, I want to be in Europe, and when I am in Europe, I want to be in New York.”
— Woody Allen
149. “What is so fascinating about sitting around watching a bunch of pituitary cases stuff a ball through a hoop?”
— Woody Allen
150. “The food in this place is really terrible. Yes, and such small portions. That’s essentially how I feel about life.”
— Woody Allen
