“My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for...” — Gene Wilder Quote

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.

I write funny. If I can make my wife laugh, I know I'm on the right track.

And in 'Frisco Kid' and in 'The Woman in Red' I had to ride badly. Then you have to really ride well in order to ride badly.

I'm an actor, not a clown.

Success is a terrible thing and a wonderful thing. If you can enjoy it, it's wonderful. If it starts eating away at you, and they're waiting for more from me, or what can I do to top this, then you're in trouble. Just do what you love. That's all I want to do.

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

I've done a lot of Shakespeare onstage, and I'm not convinced that the Earl of Oxford was the author of all those works, but I am convinced that the Stratfordian William Shakespeare was not. My feeling is that it was an amalgamation of many writers, in the same way that most films are a collaborative endeavor.

The key thing about a book is that you lose yourself in the author's world.

My neighbors don't care that I'm an author. It's inherently ego-inhibiting.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.