Bruce Vilanch Quotes

'Champagne' and 'breathmint' are the first two words all Oscar winners hear.

I didn't realise that Ridley Scott has never won an Academy Award.

I think I have a better chance at getting an Oscar before a Grammy.

I'm proud of everything I've done. If it's comedy, it's 'cause I think it's funny. If it's a drama, it's impactful. I'm leaning towards dramas now because I wrapped a couple comedies in a row. I don't like watching myself, but it's easier on me when I don't have to carry a lot of the comedy. But I enjoy making comedies but dramas come more naturally.

Oh, my God! It's a killer Pomeranian." I glanced up at Derek. "It's a tough call, but I think you can take him.

I'd like to thank the Academy for my lifetime achievement award that I will eventually get.

I got a parking ticket one time in L.A. and I was furious about it. I was trying to prove a point to the guy who gave it to me and I put it in my mouth and chewed it up. And the guy just kept watching me, like, "Yeah?" He didn't think I was going to finish the job. So then I swallowed it. The good news is that paper is not a big deal if you eat it.You'd be full, but you could eat the phone book. So that was the weirdest thing: a parking ticket.

Hollywood -- that's where they give Academy Awards to Charlton Heston for acting.

It was always the most fun thing in the world to think of a joke area and talk about it with someone like Jim Carrey, and then he would get on stage fearlessly and tear the house down. That's something I always enjoyed. It also allowed me to not be terrified.

I think, in life, being nervous about something that's forthcoming is very helpful, whether it's an awards show or a family gathering or a job interview. If you're too calm and confident, then I think you aren't executing to the best of your ability. So I try not to let nerves get the best of me, but I welcome them because it tends to fuel me to try harder.

I thought the other ones were so obviously - what are we going to do if she burns down the house? The DEA, which I think was maybe the best one because she's wearing the jacket when she goes through the mirror and I think that was kind of amazing because you really weren't expecting that. There's something almost slapstick about this in a way that worried me. It was a little pratfalley with the golf club and the - but I think it probably cut together okay.

I would have been a lot more nervous if I would had known that Matthew McConaughey was [on 30th Annual Television Critics Association Awards] and Julia Louis-Dreyfus was there and all that, and I was like, "Wait a minute and Bryan Cranston's here..." I think I would have got more nervous. But I think thinking it was just like, "Oh yeah critics, we're good." It was great.

I think more than 20 percent of Nobel Prizes have been won by Jews.

With Robert De Niro, you're thinking, suddenly he'll do something you don't expect, or he appears and he's kind of slow to get there but then he gets there in a way that nobody does. Everybody is just really, extremely different.

I'd like to begin by thanking the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press for this Golden Globe.

Sunday is the Academy Awards. Every time an actor says, 'I didn't expect this,' Ruth Bader Ginsburg will do a shot.

When I was a little kid, I used to say, "I would rather host the Oscars than win an Oscar." To me, that seemed like the more appealing, fun gig.

I don't think I will ever be able to really articulate how bizarre it was to hear my name at the Academy Awards. I'd watched in my pajamas the year before! I felt numb - dazed and confused. I remember feeling light - weightless. More like limbo than cloud nine. At first I was like, This is my statue; nobody gets to touch it. And by midnight I was like, Please, someone, take this statue; it's too heavy! So I gave it to my brother, and he went off with it.

You spend so much of your life crafting this stuff that you want to laugh in the room. I don't want to sit there and slit my wrists. And I think it reflects reality. People use humor to survive, even in the most horrific situations.

I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards ought to be sought. It encourages our business to be competitive in absolutely the wrong way. We're not sportsmen; we're not trying to come in first.

I'd suggest putting your head between your knees, but I think that's physically impossible for you at the moment.

Comedy is hard to do, and I don't know why it doesn't have its own category in awards. I don't understand why people think it's harder to do drama than it is to do comedy. It doesn't get respect. It's hard. It's really hard. It would be more gratifying to get something for a comedy, because it doesn't happen much or at all.

The Academy Awards are obscene, dirty . . . no better than a beauty contest.

I've never been motivated by the award thing. There's a certain thing that this fame thing does that makes my job harder, in a way. I'm still working with that. I don't think about it too much until somebody asks me a question, and then I think about it.

Fred and George turned to each other and said together, "Wow, we're identical!" "I dunno though, I think I'm still better looking," said Fred, examining his reflection in the kettle.