“Comparing 'Christmas Vacation' to 'It's A Wonderful Life' is the silliest thing. That film starred the greatest movie actor of all time, and the idea that our movie could ever be connected in some ...”

“Nobody prepares you for what happens when you get famous, and I didn't handle it well.”

“Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily...”

“All my children inherited perfect pitch.”

“Parrots make great pets. They have more personality than goldfish.”

“I would love to do a movie with Albert Brooks; we're so different, but I find him so funny, and I can be just as seemingly narcissistic as he comes off, the 'it's all about me' kind of thing.”

“For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have come to be reserved for desultory reading. The pressure of the holiday is over, the weather outside is frightful, there are lots of le...”

“I'd like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that's not just e-mail with a view.”

“I grew up so poor in Austria that we never took a vacation with my family.”

“Of course, you could, no doubt, call my going to film school the biggest mistake I ever made.”

“I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.”

“In feature films the director is God in documentary films God is the director.”

“Custom is second nature.”

“If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.”