Gene Wilder famous quotes

If you're not gonna tell the truth, then why start talking?
-- Gene Wilder

#Talking #Telling The Truth

I never thought of it as God. I didn't know what to call it. I don't believe in devils, but demons I do because everyone at one time or another has some kind of a demon, even if you call it by another name, that drives them.
-- Gene Wilder

#Believe #Names #Devil

On stage or in the movies I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free.
-- Gene Wilder

#Stage #Wanted

Time is a precious thing. Never waste it.
-- Gene Wilder

#Waste #Precious Things

So shines a good deed... in a weary world.
-- Gene Wilder

#Shining #World #Deeds

I'm in complete remission. I'm alive and well.
-- Gene Wilder

#Alive #Remission #Wells

I like writing books. I'd rather be at home with my wife. I can write, take a break, come out, have a glass of tea, give my wife a kiss, and go back in and write some more. It's not so bad. I am really lucky.
-- Gene Wilder

#Book #Home #Writing

I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while.
-- Gene Wilder

#Cameras #Sometimes #Sometimes In Life

My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character.
-- Gene Wilder

#Mistake #Character #Hollywood

I love acting, especially if it's a fantasy of some kind, where it's not just realistic, it's not naturalism.
-- Gene Wilder

#Acting #Fantasy #Kind

Lots of things are hard work, but I think writing, for me, after I started acting at 13 years old. I like writing now much more than I do acting only because, well, partly because the scripts that are offered are junk.
-- Gene Wilder

#Hard Work #Writing #Thinking

My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor.
-- Gene Wilder

#Thinking #Play #Stories

Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous.
-- Gene Wilder

#Littles #Surprise #Dangerous

I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track. But yes, I don't like to get Maudlin. And I have a tendency towards it.
-- Gene Wilder

#Writing #Track #Laughing

I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this.
-- Gene Wilder

#Magic #Comedian #Directors

The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last.
-- Gene Wilder

#Funny #Suspense #Lasts

And in 'Frisco Kid' and in 'The Woman in Red' I had to ride badly. Then you have to really ride well in order to ride badly.
-- Gene Wilder

#Kids #Order #Red

I love the art of acting, and I love film, because you always have anther chance if you want it. You know, if we - if this isn't going well, you can't say - well, you could say - let's stop. Let's start over again, Gene, because you were too nervous.
-- Gene Wilder

#Art #Acting #Want

Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do - sing, dance, joke about - then they take that as love.
-- Gene Wilder

#Fall #Actors #Traps

A lot of comic actors derive their main force from childish behavior. Most great comics are doing such silly things; you'd say, 'That's what a child would do.
-- Gene Wilder

#Children #Silly #Actors

Great art direction is NOT the same thing as great film direction!
-- Gene Wilder

#Art #Film #Great Art

Dont put the sheep on the table.
-- Gene Wilder

#Sheep #Tables

If the physical thing you're doing is funny, you don't have to act funny while doing it...Just be real and it will be funnier
-- Gene Wilder

#Real #Being Real

Which one of us, anywhere in the world, doesn't yearn to be believed when the audience is watching?
-- Gene Wilder

#World #Audience

I like - it's not that I want to be someone different from me, but I suppose it partly is that. I love creating a character in a fantastical situation, like Dr. Frankenstein, like Leo Bloom, a little caterpillar who blossoms into a butterfly. I love that.
-- Gene Wilder

#Butterfly #Character #Creating

What did you expect? Welcome, sonny? Make yourself at home? Marry my daughter? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know . . . morons
-- Gene Wilder

#Daughter #Home #Simple

Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple
-- Gene Wilder

#Invention #Electricity #Evaporation

As they say in Corsica... Goodbye
-- Gene Wilder

#Goodbye

Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?
-- Gene Wilder

#Heart #Fancy

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.This was said by gene wilder ... what does it mean ?
-- Gene Wilder

#Mean #Men #Doe

I never used to believe in fate. I used to think you make your own life and then you call it fate. That's why I call it irony.
-- Gene Wilder

#Believe #Fate #Thinking

The big catalyst was seeing my sister, when I was 11, doing a dramatic recital. When I saw her on the stage and everyone listening to her so patiently, quietly, that's all I wanted: for someone to look at me and listen to me, but in some beautiful and artistic way.
-- Gene Wilder

#Beautiful #Listening #Looks

To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste.
-- Gene Wilder

#Shoes #Fey #Taste

What is essential is invisible to the eye,
-- Gene Wilder

#Eye #Essentials #Invisible

For what we are about to see next, we must enter quietly into the realm of genius!
-- Gene Wilder

#Genius #Next #Realms

But the acting process - create a human being - was real, not only to the audience, but real to me.
-- Gene Wilder

#Real #Acting #Process

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.
-- Gene Wilder

#Ideas #Trying #Too Much

I'd like to do a comedy with Emma Thompson. I admire her as an actress so much. I love her. And I didn't know it until recently that her whole career started in comedy.
-- Gene Wilder

#Careers #Actresses #Comedy

I don't mean to sound - I don't want it to come out funny, but I don't like show business. I love - I love acting in films. I love it.
-- Gene Wilder

#Mean #Acting #Sound