Fred Allen
Famous Quote:
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
Advise to a young Richard Roundtree
Whatever you do in this business, It's much easier than lifting heavy things.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
Life ain't no dress rehearsal.
I can't wait to one day shoot in Detroit and say 'Let's have this double for Toronto'.
The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.
When you're down and out, something always turns up -- and it's usually the noses of your friends.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
Sage Advise to a Young Oregonian, Barbara Niven
If you want to make it in show business, get the hell out of Oregon!
The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.
No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
I'll give you a definite maybe.
You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say.
No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen.
The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter,
but, that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.…
The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films.
When asked what he thought of William Shakespeare
I'll moider da bum!
Why should people go out and pay to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?
All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.
Kiss and make up...
but too much makeup has ruined many a kiss.
To young actor. Eugene Roach on the subject of acting
Don't ever let 'em catch you at it.
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
From: "Tuesday's with Morrie"
We must learn to love one another or die.... We must!
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.
While attending a Production Meeting
This is no place to ask questions!!
What's this business of being a writer?
It's just putting one word after another.
The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it. Therefore, the showmen are…
I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them!
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
Seeing a murder on television, can help work off one's antagonisms.
And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some!
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Do, or do not. - There is no 'try'..
The difference between sex and love is that sex relieves tension and love causes it.
The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.
Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships.
I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with 'Guess' on it.
I said, Thyroid problem?
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by favoring to attempt.