Crimes and Misdemeanors

"God is a luxury I can't afford."

"One sin leads to a deeper sin."

"I remember my father telling me, "The eyes of God are on us always." The eyes of God. What a phrase to a young boy. What were God's eyes like? Unimaginably penetrating, intense eyes, I assumed. And I wonder if it was just a coincidence that I made my specialty ophthalmology."

"Jack lives in the real world. You live in the kingdom of heaven. I'd managed to keep free of that real world, but suddenly it's found me."

"When he tells you he wants to exchange ideas, what he really wants is to exchange fluids."

"Show business is, is dog-eat-dog. It's worse than dog-eat-dog. It's dog-doesn't-return-other-dog's-phone-calls. You know, it's just terrible. Which reminds me, I should really check my service. I don't know why, I haven't had a message in seven years! You know, I call up and I hear the girls on the other end giggling."

"While we're waiting for a cab I'll give you your lesson for today. Don't listen to what your teachers tell ya, you know. Don't pay attention. Just, just see what they look like and that's how you'll know what life is really gonna be like."

"I think I see a cab. If we run quickly we can kick the crutch from that old lady and get it."

"I don't know from suicide. Where I grew up in Brooklyn, nobody committed suicide - they were too unhappy."

"What's the guy so upset about? You'd think nobody was ever compared to Mussolini before."

"The last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty."

"A strange man defecated on my sister."

"Honey, you're the one who stopped sleeping with me, okay? It'll be a year come April 20th. I remember the date exactly, because it was Hitler's birthday."

"[after Levy's suicide] I got 600,000 feet of film on this guy. And he's telling how great life is and everything and now, you know. What am I gonna do? I'll cut it up and make it into guitar picks."

"We really do have to go. I have to get up at dawn and teach Emily Dickinson to a bunch of upper-middle class crack addicts."

"We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more."

"When we fall in love, we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people to whom you were attached as children. On the other hand, we ask our beloved to correct all the wrongs that these early parents or siblings inflicted on us. So, love contains in it the contradiction, the attempts to return to the past and the attempt to undo the past."

"I've gone out the window."

"But we must always remember that when we are born we need a great deal of love in order to persuade us to stay in life. Once we get that love it usually lasts us. But the universe is a pretty cold place. It is we who invest it with our feelings. And under certain conditions, we feel the thing isn’t worth it any more."

"If it bends it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny."

"Idea for a farce. A poor...loser does a documentary of a great man and in the process learns some deep values."

"I'll be honest. You're not my first choice."

"Comedy is tragedy plus time."

"Woody Allen - Clifford Stern"

"Martin Landau - Judah Rosenthal"

"Mia Farrow - Halley Reed"

"Alan Alda - Lester"

"Anjelica Huston - Dolores Paley"

"Sam Waterston - Ben"

"Jerry Orbach - Jack Rosenthal"

"Joanna Gleeson - Wendy Stern"