Albert Brooks

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.

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

Even in my comedies, I don't take anger as a joke. I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it. 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.

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

There've been a few mother-daughter movies that are somewhat realistic. But the mother-son movies are more comical than realistic: 'Throw Momma from the Train,' 'Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot.' You don't sit in the dark and go, 'Oh my God, that's my mother.'

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.

I had a very wise person tell me that he thinks marriage, when you're younger, you keep thinking you can fix things. That's what people do. And you can't really fix anything. It shouldn't be a massive difficult thing every day. Life's difficult enough.

I made my living in comedy, but I'm not a silly person. I've got all these sides to me. Even in my movies that I've written myself, the characters sometimes border on great anger or nutsiness or other kinds of behavior. I'm not just doing fart jokes for two hours.

I guess I was the class clown - with a name like Albert Einstein, you don't hide in the back. I'd read the school bulletin to the class, and I'd add activities and make stuff up. It was good, a good 10 minutes every morning.

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.

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

My roots were in acting. That's all I wanted to be. Even though my father was a radio comedian, it wasn't cool to say, at a young age, 'I want to be a comedian.'

Basically, I still have the privacy that all celebrities crave, except for those celebrities who feel that privacy reflects some kind of failure on their part.

I can't not put humor in a book.

My humor is traced with dark - I've got dark patches all over the place.

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.

When you use more than 3-5% of your brain, you don't want to be on Earth!"-Bob Diamond, Interdimensional Attorney, from the Albert Brooks' movie, Defending Your Life