Harold Ramis quotes

My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.
-- Harold Ramis

#Character #Winning #Play

I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director's work.
-- Harold Ramis

#Directors #Done #Claims

How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood.
-- Harold Ramis

#Childhood #Determined #Handle

Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
-- Harold Ramis

#Relationship #Professional Relationships #Enjoy

Life doesn't care about your vision. You just gotta roll with it.
-- Harold Ramis

#Vision #Care

I never work just to work. It's some combination of laziness and self-respect.
-- Harold Ramis

#Respect #Self #Laziness

I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.
-- Harold Ramis

#Years #Nine #Film

A psychologist said to me, there are only two important questions you have to ask yourself. What do you really feel? And, what do you really want? If you can answer those two, you probably can leave your neuroses behind you.
-- Harold Ramis

#Fun #Two #Important

No matter what I have to say, I'm still trying to say it in comedic form.
-- Harold Ramis

#Trying #Matter #Form

Ive never been a big believer in ghosts or the spirit world, and for me, that was part of the point of the movie, ... What the Ghostbusters represented was the triumph of human courage and human ingenuity. People create their own monsters. Our fears come from within us, not outside.
-- Harold Ramis

#People #Monsters #Triumph

Acting is all about big hair and funny props... All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it.
-- Harold Ramis

#Hair #Acting #Actors

The cutting room is where you discover the optimal length of the movie.
-- Harold Ramis

#Cutting #Rooms #Length

Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it.
-- Harold Ramis

#Get Away

If Chevy Chase had not been an actor, he might have been a very popular guy in advertising or whatever field he would have gone into, because of his charisma.
-- Harold Ramis

#Guy #Gone #Actors

Find the most talented person in the room and if it's not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. try to be helpful.
-- Harold Ramis

#Trying #Rooms #Next

If people work together, if they can keep a cooperative spirit and use their ingenuity and balance it all with good humor and good will, then there's nothing to be afraid of. That's the sappy part of it, ... On the other hand, every Halloween for many years when my kids were trick-or-treating I would put on my 'Ghostbusters' jumpsuit with a police flashlight to protect all the kids from ghosts.
-- Harold Ramis

#Halloween #Kids #Hands

Where's the great pay? Where's the travel? Where's the Winnebago, Goddamnit!
-- Harold Ramis

#Money #Pay

I had a lot of fun working with John Candy. We had a pretty good rapport.
-- Harold Ramis

#Fun #Candy #Rapport

We were tremendously encouraged by the testing of Analyze That. Audiences loved it. They were telling us that they liked it as much as the original. We recorded the laughs in the theater.
-- Harold Ramis

#Laughing #Theater #Testing

I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.
-- Harold Ramis

#Reading #Quitting #Playboy

We are all several different people. There are different aspects of our nature that are competing.
-- Harold Ramis

#People #Different #Aspect

We all wish we could be in more than one place at the same time. People with families feel guilty all the time-if we spend too much time with our family, we feel we're not working hard enough.
-- Harold Ramis

#Work #People #Wish

Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
-- Harold Ramis

#Years #People #Laughing

I'd like to think I'd never do a gratuitous fart joke.
-- Harold Ramis

#Thinking #Fart #Jokes

Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
-- Harold Ramis

#Thinking #Talking #Salary

I believe things happen that can't be explained, but so many people seem intent on explaining them. Everyone has an answer for them. Either aliens or things from the spirit world.
-- Harold Ramis

#Believe #People #Answers

I used to be married to a woman who pursued every spiritual trend with tremendous passion and dragged me along. I don't believe in anything. I'd seen mediums and readers.
-- Harold Ramis

#Spiritual #Believe #Passion

It's like the old rule-if you introduce a gun into the first act of a play, it's going to be used in the third act. So if you do a movie about criminals, you have to accept there's going to be Some action.
-- Harold Ramis

#Gun #Play #Firsts

There's a personal story of my own that I will write at some point, and it's a film that I will happily make. It could very well be the next thing I do, unless someone shows me something great.
-- Harold Ramis

#Writing #Stories #Next

The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House.
-- Harold Ramis

#Opportunity #Animal #Giving

That's one of the great things about DVD: In addition to reaching people who didn't catch the movie in theaters, you get to have this interaction of sorts.
-- Harold Ramis

#Dvds #People #Reaching

I'm not a believer in the pratfall. I don't think it's funny just to have someone fall down.
-- Harold Ramis

#Fall #Thinking #Falling Down

You can't not have feelings about country clubs, whichever side you're on.
-- Harold Ramis

#Country #Feelings #Clubs

First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?
-- Harold Ramis

#Goes On #Taste #Firsts

I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.
-- Harold Ramis

#Years #Want #Moral

My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.
-- Harold Ramis

#Summer #Country #Military

No one will laugh at how great things are for somebody.
-- Harold Ramis

#Laughing #Great Things

Multiplicity was a movie that tested really well. People seeing the movie really liked it, but then the studio couldn't market it. We opened on a weekend with nine other films.
-- Harold Ramis

#Weekend #People #Nine

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.
-- Harold Ramis

#Character #Interesting #Stories

My job is to come up with something that you like and you agree with that you would play wholeheartedly. If we disagree, I may not be doing my job correctly.
-- Harold Ramis

#Jobs #Agreement #Play

Well, for me, it's the relationship between comedy and life - that's the edge I live on, and maybe it's my protection against looking at the tragedy of it all. It's seeing life in balance. Comedy and tragedy co-exist. You can't have one without the other. I'm of the school that anything can be funny, if seen from a comedic point of view.
-- Harold Ramis

#School #Views #Balance

Chicago still remains a Mecca of the Midwest - people from both coasts are kind of amazed how good life is in Chicago, and what a good culture we've got. You can have a pretty wonderful artistic life and never leave Chicago.
-- Harold Ramis

#Good Life #People #Chicago

I have no trouble selling out—I’m a benevolent hack, in a certain way—but I want to pander for something I believe in.
-- Harold Ramis

#Believe #Want #Way

I collect spores, molds, and fungus
-- Harold Ramis

#Mold #Fungi

With both Caddyshack and Vacation, it's not like the subjects were serious enough that they engaged my interest for another round. I love the characters, and the actors were great, but I didn't see the need to make another Vacation movie.
-- Harold Ramis

#Character #Vacation #Needs