Woody Allen born as Allen Stewart Konigsberg is an American director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright and author, known for his unique mix of bittersweet comedy and weighty drama.
His work, often featuring elements of parody, slapstick and the absurd, bears the influence of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.
Notably, Allen is recognized for crafting strong, well-defined female characters, earning him a reputation as a sympathetic director for women.
By the late 1970s Allen had emerged as one of the most accomplished filmmakers globally.
However, his later works’ unevenness and allegations of sexual abuse somewhat marred his esteem.
Related: Orson Welles Quotes from the Legendary American Director and Werner Herzog Quotes from the German Film Director
I have handpicked the most popular quotes by Woody Allen in the post.
Greatest Woody Allen Quotes
1. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” ~ (Woody Allen).
2. “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” ~ (Woody Allen).
3. “Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage.” ~ (Woody Allen).
4. “I’m not anti-social. I’m just not social.” ~ (Woody Allen).
5. “The only love that lasts is unrequited love.” ~ (Woody Allen).
6. “Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.” ~ (Woody Allen).
7. “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” ~ (Woody Allen).
8. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” ~ (Woody Allen).
9. “Life’s hard, then you die.” ~ (Woody Allen).
10. “The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” ~ (Woody Allen).
11. “The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.” ~ (Woody Allen).
12. “If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse.” ~ (Woody Allen).
13. “The heart wants what it wants.” ~ (Woody Allen).
14. “The only thing standing between me and greatness is me.” ~ (Woody Allen).
15. “I don’t know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.” ~ (Woody Allen).
16. “In my house I’m the boss, my wife is just the decision maker.” ~ (Woody Allen).
17. “Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.” ~ (Woody Allen).
18. “All I have in my life is my imagination.” ~ (Woody Allen).
19. “Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.” ~ (Woody Allen).
20. “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” ~ (Woody Allen).
21. “Paranoia is knowing all the facts.” ~ (Woody Allen).
22. “Showing up is 80 percent of life.” ~ (Woody Allen).
23. “I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100.” ~ (Woody Allen).
24. “Is sex dirty? Only when it’s being done right.” ~ (Woody Allen).
25. “Just showing up is half the battle.” ~ (Woody Allen).
26. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” ~ (Woody Allen).
27. “I’ve become the person I’ve always hated, but I’m happier.” ~ (Woody Allen).
28. “If 90% of success in life is showing up, the other 10% depends on what you’re showing up for.” ~ (Woody Allen).
29. “We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to despair, the other to destruction. Let’s hope we make the right choice.” ~ (Woody Allen).
30. “Why ruin a good story with the truth?” ~ (Woody Allen).
Popular Woody Allen Quotes
31. “Men learn to love the woman they are attracted to. Women learn to become attracted to the man they fall in love with.” ~ (Woody Allen).
32. “What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?” ~ (Woody Allen).
33. “The most important words in the English language are not ‘I love you’ but ‘it’s benign.’” ~ (Woody Allen).
34. “The study of economy usually shows us that the best time for purchase was last year.” ~ (Woody Allen).
35. “Error, no keyboard. Press F1 to continue.” ~ (Woody Allen).
36. “I never start editing a film until it’s completely shot; I don’t edit along the way, ever. When it’s finished I come in here and we start with reel one, scene one and start editing shot by shot by shot until we’re finished.” ~ (Woody Allen).
37. “In my next life I want to live backwards. Start out dead and finish off as an orgasm.” ~ (Woody Allen).
38. “Don’t worry, I know almost exactly what I’m doing.” ~ (Woody Allen).
39. “Where did we come from? Where are we going? Is there possibility of a group discount?” ~ (Woody Allen).
40. “Problems are like toilet paper. You pull on one and ten more come.” ~ (Woody Allen).
41. “I hate the beach. I hate the sun. I’m pale and I’m redheaded. I don’t tan – I stroke!” ~ (Woody Allen).
42. “Eternity is really long, especially near the end.” ~ (Woody Allen).
43. “I love the rain – it washes memories off the sidewalk of life.” ~ (Woody Allen).
44. “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.” ~ (Woody Allen).
45. “There are three rings involved with marriage. The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.” ~ (Woody Allen).
46. “If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.” ~ (Woody Allen).
47. “I don’t want to live forever through my work. I want to live forever by not dying.” ~ (Woody Allen).
48. “My ex-wife was a philosophy major at NYU. Yeah, she and I used to have deep philosophical discussions where she would prove that I didn’t exist.” ~ (Woody Allen).
49. “I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.” ~ (Woody Allen).
50. “What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.” ~ (Woody Allen).
51. “Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough. As you climb the ladder of success, be sure it’s leaning against the right building. Eighty percent of success is showing up.” ~ (Woody Allen).
52. “It is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o’clock.” ~ (Woody Allen).
53. “Our love, our love will last forever. It’s forever but it just doesn’t work. That’s why it will always be romantic because it can not be complete.” ~ (Woody Allen).
54. “You’re still in love’ ‘No I’m not, I’m not She’ll always be a part of me, and she’s an important person in my life but for the two of us something wasn’t working.’ ‘What element?’ ‘We never found out.” ~ (Woody Allen).
55. “I don’t know what I want, but I know what I don’t want.” ~ (Woody Allen).
56. “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.” ~ (Woody Allen).
57. “Between the Pope and air conditioning, I’d choose air conditioning.” ~ (Woody Allen).
58. “Nothing like a little post-traumatic stress disorder to make your day complete.” ~ (Woody Allen).
59. “Better not think too much. Relying more on the body: it is more trustworthy.” ~ (Woody Allen).
60. “Achilles only had an Achilles heel. I have an entire Achilles body.” ~ (Woody Allen).
Top Woody Allen Quotes
61. “All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.” ~ (Woody Allen).
62. “Isn’t all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed?” ~ (Woody Allen).
63. “Of all human weakness, obsession is the most dangerous. And the silliest.” ~ (Woody Allen).
64. “When you are dead, it is hard to find the light switch.” ~ (Woody Allen).
65. “In California, they don’t throw their garbage away – they make it into TV shows.” ~ (Woody Allen).
66. “Is Knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know?” ~ (Woody Allen).
67. “I don’t know enough to be incompetent.” ~ (Woody Allen).
68. “Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ but not in those words.” ~ (Woody Allen).
69. “Remember, if you smoke after sex you’re doing it too fast.” ~ (Woody Allen).
70. “I’m short enough and ugly enough to succeed on my own.” ~ (Woody Allen).
71. “Honey! Bring down a copy of my will – and an eraser!” ~ (Woody Allen).
72. “Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?” ~ (Woody Allen).
73. “Marriage is like mushrooms: we notice too late if they are good or bad.” ~ (Woody Allen).
74. “You’re still searching for me in every woman. You’ll always seek to duplicate what we had. You know it.” ~ (Woody Allen).
75. “I had an IQ test. The results came back negative.” ~ (Woody Allen).
76. “You know, it’s one thing about intellectuals, they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what’s going on.” ~ (Woody Allen).
77. “I read in self-defense.” ~ (Woody Allen).
78. “When I am in New York, I want to be in Europe, and when I am in Europe, I want to be in New York.” ~ (Woody Allen).
79. “I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.” ~ (Woody Allen).
80. “Well, trouble’s my middle name. Actually, my middle name is Marion, but I don’t want you spreading that around.” ~ (Woody Allen).
81. “There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?” ~ (Woody Allen).
82. “He’s a politician. That’s a notch below child molester.” ~ (Woody Allen).
Famous Woody Allen Quotes
83. “Reality may not be the best of all possible worlds, but it’s still the only place where you can get a decent steak.” ~ (Woody Allen).
84. “Your self-esteem is a notch below Kafka.” ~ (Woody Allen).
85. “When you travel around the country, you see what a tough town New York is: rude, competitive, a town where good, logical ideas are ignored in favor of unworkable ones. And yet, all these other towns are so dead and boring compared to New York.” ~ (Woody Allen).
86. “I foresee death by culture shock.” ~ (Woody Allen).
87. “I work all the time because it’s a great distraction and it keeps me from sitting home and obsessing morbidly.” ~ (Woody Allen).
88. “In the shower, with the hot water coming down, you’ve left the real world behind, and very frequently things open up for you. It’s the change of venue, the unblocking the attempt to force the ideas that’s crippling you when you’re trying to write.” ~ (Woody Allen).
89. “Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” ~ (Woody Allen).
90. “I prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.” ~ (Woody Allen).
91. “Sex between a man and a woman can be absolutely wonderful; provided you get between the right man and the right woman.” ~ (Woody Allen).
92. “You are always a comedian by default. You are this way because you’ve been forced to be this way, but it is better to be the hero. So if you can be a persona, the great one of my lifetime of course was and is Marlon Brando.” ~ (Woody Allen).
93. “The best an idea gets is when it’s in your head.” ~ (Woody Allen).
94. “I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.” ~ (Woody Allen).
95. “I write about what I want to write about, and so the film comes out as a very personal expression even if its subject matter is totally prefabricated.” ~ (Woody Allen).
96. “I know what I think but I don’t know how to put it into words. Maybe I could get a little bit drunk and dance it for you.” ~ (Woody Allen).
97. “I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.” ~ (Woody Allen).
98. “No Matter what you do there will be critics.” ~ (Woody Allen).
99. “God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.” ~ (Woody Allen).
100. “Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle.” ~ (Woody Allen).
Short Woody Allen Quotes
101. “Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.” ~ (Woody Allen).
102. “I think crime pays. The hours are good, you travel a lot.” ~ (Woody Allen).
103. “Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.” ~ (Woody Allen).
104. “Those who can’t do, teach!” ~ (Woody Allen).
105. “I didn’t believe in reincarnation in my past life, and I still don’t.” ~ (Woody Allen).
106. “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.” ~ (Woody Allen).
107. “Subjectivity is objective.” ~ (Woody Allen).
108. “The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.” ~ (Woody Allen).
109. “Why not? Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain – and this is a chance for something special.” ~ (Woody Allen).
110. “God is either cruel or incompetent.” ~ (Woody Allen).
111. “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.” ~ (Woody Allen).
112. “We Are The Sum Total Of Our Choices…” ~ (Woody Allen).
113. “I’m twelve years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don’t understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons.” ~ (Woody Allen).
114. “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.” ~ (Woody Allen).
115. “I am two with nature.” ~ (Woody Allen).
116. “Even if God exists, he’s done such a terrible job, it’s a wonder people don’t get together and file a class action suit against him.” ~ (Woody Allen).
117. “Money is not everything, but it is better than having one’s health.” ~ (Woody Allen).
118. “I believe that sex is a beautiful thing between two people. Between five, it’s fantastic.” ~ (Woody Allen).
119. “My brain? That’s my second favorite organ.” ~ (Woody Allen).
120. “There’s nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can’t cure.” ~ (Woody Allen).
121. “She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater and her figure described a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.” ~ (Woody Allen).
122. “To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.” ~ (Woody Allen).
123. “Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.” ~ (Woody Allen).
124. “I think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.” ~ (Woody Allen).
125. “I hate reality but it’s still the best place to get a good steak.” ~ (Woody Allen).
126. “If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.” ~ (Woody Allen).
127. “A stockbroker is someone who invests other people’s money until it is all gone.” Woody Allen
128. “Marriage is the death of hope.” ~ (Woody Allen).
129. “There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?” ~ (Woody Allen).
130. “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.” ~ (Woody Allen).
Best Woody Allen Quotes
131. “None of the arts are any good unless you really are great at them.” ~ (Woody Allen).
132. “Life is unresolved, confusing, bewildering, puzzling, ambiguous. You don’t really know what’s going to happen. The future is uncertain for everybody.” ~ (Woody Allen).
133. “And Nietzche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we lived we’re going to live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I’ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again.” ~ (Woody Allen).
134. “See, I never gain an ounce, because, you know, my anxiety acts like aerobics.” ~ (Woody Allen).
135. “If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.” ~ (Woody Allen).
136. “I wish I could think of a positive point to leave you with. Will you take two negative points?” ~ (Woody Allen).
137. “Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.” ~ (Woody Allen).
138. “The best things in life are censored.” ~ (Woody Allen).
139. “You rely too much on brain. The brain is the most overrated organ.” ~ (Woody Allen).
140. “All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we choose to distort it.” ~ (Woody Allen).
141. “No, I don’t think you’re paranoid. I think you’re the opposite of paranoid. I think you walk around with the insane delusion that people like you.” ~ (Woody Allen).
142. “Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.” ~ (Woody Allen).
Wise Woody Allen Quotes
143. “My films are a form of psychoanalysis, except that it is I who am paid, which changes everything.” ~ (Woody Allen).
144. “Jazz is a big thing with me. It’s a very big passion of mine, to play it. I’m an amateur musician and I love everything about it. I was obsessed with jazz when I was 15 years old and I know a lot about it because I’ve loved it so much.” ~ (Woody Allen).
145. “I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what he charged for bookshelves.” ~ (Woody Allen).
146. “My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.” ~ (Woody Allen).
147. “Today I saw a red and yellow sunset and thought, how insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday too, and it rained.” ~ (Woody Allen).
148. “If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.” ~ (Woody Allen).
