Neil Simon

Marvin Neil Simon (4 July 1927 – 26 August 2018) was an American playwright and screenwriter best known for his comedies.

If you can go through life without ever experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.

See also Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Goodbye Girl, Murder by Death, and The Odd Couple.

Quotes

• Take care of him. And make him feel important. And if you can do that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage…Like two out of every ten couples.
  • Mother, in Barefoot in the Park (1963); cited from The Collected Plays of Neil Simon (New York: New American Library, 1986) vol. 1, p. 207

• And so she lived ... hopefully ... ever after.
  • Sweet Charity (1966); cited from The Collected Plays of Neil Simon (New York: Random House, 1991) vol. 3, p. 113

• Money brings some happiness. But after a certain point, it just brings more money.
  • Interviewed in Newsweek, (2 February 1970)

• You're welcome to take a bath. You look like the second week of the garbage strike.
  • Evy, in The Gingerbread Lady (1970); cited from The Collected Plays of Neil Simon (New York: Random House, 1971) vol. 2, p. 76

• There are two million interesting people in New York and only seventy-eight in Los Angeles.
  • Interviewed in Playboy (February 1979)

• People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?
  • New York Times, June 4, 1984.
  • On receiving an honorary degree from Williams College

• Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.
  • The New York Times (March 24, 1985)

• A writer without confidence is like a metaphor without something to compare itself to.
  • Rewrites (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996) p. 105

• If you can go through life without ever experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet. And if you've gone through pain and think you know exactly why, you haven't examined all the options.
  • The Play Goes On (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999) p. 260

Quotes about Neil Simon

• Neil Simon strikes me less as the new Moliere than as a rattier Rattigan.
  • Andrew Sarris, "Films in Focus". The Village Voice (May 20, 1971)