Larry Gelbart Quotes

United States, Screenwriter
February 25, 1928 – September, 11, 2009.

Larry Simon Gelbart (February 25, 1928 – September 11, 2009) was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter, director and author, most famous as a creator and producer of the television series M*A*S*H, and as co-writer of Broadway musicals City of Angels and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Also known as Playwright, Author, Director, Writer

You can write something that has continuity, but it makes happy endings all the more ridiculous.

Larry Gelbart
- Happy
- Ridiculous
- Endings
A war is like when it rains in New York and everybody crowds into doorways, ya know? And they all get chummy together. Perfect strangers. The only difference, of course, is in a war it's also raining on the other side of the street and the people who are chummy over there are trying to kill the people who are over here who are chums.

Larry Gelbart
- New York
- Crowds
- Rains
I love to play with language; make it do tricks, turn a word inside out to see if it's got a hidden meaning tucked away somewhere, or perhaps find that it's capable of an extra entendre or two. . . . Plotting is nothing I did, or do, naturally. It is the hardest part of the writing process. No matter how many times you plot a script successfully, the next one, representing new and uncharted territory, convinces you that you really don't know how to do it at all.

Larry Gelbart
- Writing
- Play
- Process
The subtle differences in language and humor that get lost in translation, for example, make it almost impossible for big companies to do something that will appeal at home and abroad.

Larry Gelbart
I write what I write and I honestly don't care if it gets on or not. I'm writing to see if I can find out some of what I think about any number of situations. I work it out in the writing.

Larry Gelbart
- Write
- Number
- Situations
I think the greatest imagination we can exercise is one that imagines how someone else feels. Because you know how you feel, but so often we attribute our own feelings on to someone else.

Larry Gelbart

The only way to avoid age discrimination in Hollywood is to die young.

Larry Gelbart