A Quote by Gene Wilder

Zero Mostel wasn't afraid of authority in any form, and that's the part that influenced me the most. — © Gene Wilder
Zero Mostel wasn't afraid of authority in any form, and that's the part that influenced me the most.
You say the character [of Leo Bloom] was meek and insecure, and you could've been describing me as well. I was a very shy person in those days, and working with Zero [Mostel], who was bigger than life, helped me grow. Zero was a strong influence on me.
[ Zero Mostel] would tell anyone anything, not to be impolite, but he'd show that he wasn't at all afraid of however much money that person [had] or whatever title they had in a company. It didn't scare him. Mel [Brooks] was very much the same way.
Part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly incompetent at life and in love. You have to teach them the very basics of emotional literacy. You have to teach them how to be there for you, and part of me feels tender toward them and gentle, and part of me is so afraid of them, afraid of any more violation.
I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window.
I try not to see new comics - their acts or their films. Part of that is professional. I don't want to be influenced. But another part is fear and jealousy. I'm afraid to see how good they might be. I don't like that emotion, but it's part of me.
You know, artists are influenced by other artists. We're all deeply influenced by what's around us; we don't make anything cold. Sometimes we think that we do. But within that, the most important part is that even though we're influenced, what are the levels of invention that we carry forth even as we've been influenced by something that's come before?
In the '20s and '30s, there were these musicals either set on college campuses or based on classical stories, so any of the Rodgers and Hart musicals certainly influenced me. I was definitely influenced by any of the 'Porgy' songs; I was influenced by 'American Pie.'
'The Producers' is my favorite movie, and my favorite performances of all time are Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and I feel like I strive to be a combination of those two guys.
The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.
The truest form of any form of revolutionary left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, and Allan Ginsberg's period. Excuse me but that was where it was at. The hippies, I'm afraid, don't know what's happening.
Who influenced me the most? I'd have to say Lauryn Hill, I think she influenced me the most.
I'm pretty open. I'm not afraid of men. I'm not afraid of women. I'm not afraid of sex and sexuality. It's part of me, and it comes out in the photograph. It's as if at that moment when I'm taking pictures, I'm not a man and I'm not a woman. If I see a moment that seems true to me, that seems honest, whether it's female or male, it's part of me as well.
On screen, Gene Wilder could often be summed up as an accident waiting to happen, that frizzy, flyaway hair, the eyes darting this way and that and then something would set him off, Zero Mostel, say, in the movie that made Wilder a star, "The Producers."
I will not be influenced, governed, or controlled, in my temporal interests by any ecclesiastical authority or pretended revelation whatever, contrary to my own judgment.
I think that limitations are the most important part of any art form
Those who influenced me the most are not those who pointed out all my faults, but those who knew God was bigger than my shortcomings. Those who influenced me the most didn't just point a finger, they held out a helping hand.
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