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I never used to believe in fate. I used to think you make your own life, and then you call it fate.
Gene Wilder -
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
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If my mother hadn't laughed at the funny things I did, I probably wouldn't be a comic actor. After she had her first heart attack, the doctor said, 'Try to make her laugh.' And that was the first time I tried to make anyone laugh.
Gene Wilder -
I'm in complete remission. I'm alive and well.
Gene Wilder -
What I learned from Mel Brooks was audacity - in performance as in life. Maybe you go too far, but try it.
Gene Wilder -
My mother was suffering every day of her life, and what right did I have to be happy if she was suffering? So whenever I got happy about something, I felt the need to cut it off, and the only way to cut it off was to pray. 'Forgive me Lord.' For what, I didn't know.
Gene Wilder -
My wife and I water color, paint water colors.
Gene Wilder -
What do actors really want? To be great actors? Yes, but you can't buy talent, so it's best to leave the word 'great' out of it. I think to be believed, onstage or onscreen, is the one hope that all actors share.
Gene Wilder
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I said something really stupid once. I told a friend that my mother was so beautiful, but my dad was ugly. My dad heard it and just laughed it off, but I felt guilty. It haunted me for years. I should never have said that.
Gene Wilder -
I've become pretty philosophical about a lot of things, including death. It doesn't get to me.
Gene Wilder -
If something comes along that's really good, and I think I would be good for it, I'd be happy to do it. But not too many came along. I mean, they came along for the first, I don't know, 15, 18 films, but I didn't do that many. But then I didn't want to do the kind of junk I was seeing.
Gene Wilder -
Pride is not the worst of sins. In fact, it's one of the most interesting ones.
Gene Wilder -
There seems to be a pattern. I get one good script every two years.
Gene Wilder -
I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while.
Gene Wilder
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The world is not based on fairness. Human beings can rise to fairness, can administer something that makes it fair or just. But that's not God.
Gene Wilder -
When you fall in love, and you're very young, you think that that's the love of your life. And maybe it is, but it usually doesn't turn out that way.
Gene Wilder -
I'm stopped by mothers who say, 'Mr. Wilder, what advice would you give to my young boy? He's really talented.'
Gene Wilder -
I thought the script was very good, but something was missing. I wanted to come out with a cane, come down slowly, have it stick into one of the bricks, get up, fall over, roll around, and they all laugh and applaud. The director asked, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ I said from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.
Gene Wilder -
I'm not from Hollywood, and I'm also not one of the people who wants to do a tell-all, and I hate tell-alls. I didn't want to tell all.
Gene Wilder -
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
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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 -
I've had a very good life and a very good career. I have no regrets.
Gene Wilder -
Whatever simplicity I've achieved in writing, I think I owe most of it to Jean Renoir and Hemingway: simple, declarative sentences. I've read some very good writers, but the sentences were so long that I've forgotten what the point was.
Gene Wilder -
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