Woody Allen

Woody Allen has a new film so there was an interview in the Times yesterday. As ever, Allen comes over as a cautiously optimistic humanist. He knows we can't escape the fact of death and so copes with the idea as best he can, distancing it for the idea of judgement. When tackled about his morality he offers no defence for his actions but clearly feels his conscience has been squared. The following quotations struck me.

"God forbid the people who have bad luck, or even neutral luck, because even the luckiest, the most beautiful and brilliant, what have they got? A minuscule, meaningless life span in the grand scheme of things."

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"Ageing, death: these things intrude upon you. When you get out of bed you find, ‘Oh God my back hurts’ and ‘Oh God I’ve got a pain in the back of my neck’. You start to feel your age: it finds you. You’re aware of death your whole life, constantly sweeping it under the rug and eventually it happens — you just have to hope as painlessly as possible. I once said in a movie that the nicest thing you could wish for is to say goodnight to your loved one, say ‘We’ll go to the museum tomorrow’, then never wake up again."

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"You reach a certain age and you come to the conclusion that greatness is not in you. You aspired to greatness when you were younger. but either through lack of industry or lack of discipline or simply lack of genius you didn’t achieve greatness. The years go by and you realise: ‘I’m this mid-level guy.’ I did the best I could.
"It’s not hard to accept. I didn’t compromise or sell out, but I’ve never achieved what I hoped to."