Albert Brooks's Quotes

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.

My mom was a professional. My dad and mom met each other in a movie called 'New Faces of 1937.' My mom went under the name Thelma Leeds, and she did a few movies, and she was really a great singer, and when she married my dad and started to have a family, she sang at parties.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You know what it is, the reason so many 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds are saying 'Drive' is their favorite movie is that 'Drive' is a 90-minute trip into what a lot of seventies filmmaking was. It encapsulates the best of a certain kind of style, and a style that a lot of people haven't seen before, with the music and the way it's edited.

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.

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?'

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

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

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

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

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

I can't not put humor in a book.

I cast unusual people in my movies.

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

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

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

I like movies about failing.

I never wanted to be a director.

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

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

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

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.

I'm a strong fellow.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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