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. — Mel Brooks

Tragedy is what happens to me; comedy is what happens to you. — Mel Brooks

Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you. — Mel Brooks

Comedy is protest. It’s ‘I beg to differ,’ if you’re fancy, or if you’re Jewish, ‘Hey, listen to this! — Mel Brooks

When you get big special effects pictures, sci–fi and things, there’s little or no comedy. Or it’s a domestic comedy and there’s not one special effect. But very rarely do these things fuse and come out right. — Mel Brooks

Tragedy is when i cut my finger. comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die. — Mel Brooks

Mad About You’ was very fun. — Mel Brooks

Look, I had to take chances or it wasn’t fun being funny. — Mel Brooks

What in the wide, wide world of sports is a–goin’ on here? — Mel Brooks

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers. — Mel Brooks

I only direct in self–defense. — Mel Brooks

Basically, I’m a writer. I’m the proprietor of the vision. I alone know what I eventually want to happen on the screen. So if you have a valuable idea, the only way to protect it is to direct it. — Mel Brooks

All right, I am often brash, rude and brutally direct. Someday I’m going to die and I don’t have time to toe–dance around the periphery of hatred. — Mel Brooks

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. — Mel Brooks

Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said. — Mel Brooks

Good taste is the enemy of comedy. — Mel Brooks

But I have bad taste with a deep fount of intellectuality. — Mel Brooks

There’s not enough bad taste! I LOVE bad taste! I live for bad taste! I am the spokesman for bad taste! — Mel Brooks

I’ll accept bad taste in a minute, as long as there’s some great comedy minds and performances. — Mel Brooks

It would be hypocritical of me to take issue with anything in questionable taste, seeing that I invented bad taste in films. — Mel Brooks

If you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy and colorful and lively. — Mel Brooks

In every spoof I make real love to the things I am spoofing. — Mel Brooks

I’m always stunned when I find out people like Roosevelt and Tolstoy weren’t Jewish. How could I love them so much? — Mel Brooks

You cannot have fun with anything that you don’t love or admire or respect. — Mel Brooks

Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love. — Mel Brooks

I also try to surround myself with people I love–make a family out of the company. So I tend to use the same people over and over. There’s a sort of Mel Brooks Repertory Company. — Mel Brooks

I love writing songs. I’m a songwriter. — Mel Brooks

I love gentiles. In fact, on of my favorite activities is Protestant spotting. — Mel Brooks

I love spaghetti and sex, sometimes together. My dream of heaven is walking naked through fields of pasta fazool. — Mel Brooks

I knew it… I’m surrounded by assholes! — Mel Brooks

I’ve always loved songwriting, and I vowed to be a songwriter like Cole Porter when I was only 9 years old. — Mel Brooks

Oh, I’m not a true genius. I’m a near genius. I would say I’m a short genius. I’d rather be tall and normal than a short genius. — Mel Brooks

Any man’s greatness is a tribute to the nobility of all mankind, so when we celebrate the genius of [Leo] Tolstoy, we say, ‘Look! One of our boys made it! Look what we’re capable of! — Mel Brooks

My God, I’d love to smash into the casket of Dostoyevsky, grab that bony hand and scream at the remains, ‘Well done, you god–damn genius.’ — Mel Brooks

It’s talent. Either you got it or you ain’t. — Mel Brooks

I loved Westerns as a little kid, and I loved horror films. — Mel Brooks

There’s an army story in me, and I think there’s a WWII Brooks film somewhere. — Mel Brooks

Sir, I have seen your film and it is vulgar! Madame, my film rises below vulgarity. — Mel Brooks

Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. — Mel Brooks

I know how to make it a great musical. I’ve got to. It’s like I’ve got to see it on stage. — Mel Brooks

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan. — Mel Brooks