Quotes by Harold Ramis

About Harold Ramis:

Harold Allen Ramis was an American actor, director, and writer specializing in comedy. His best-known film acting roles are as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote both films. As a writer-director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), and Analyze This (1999). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, and one of three screenwriters of the film National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

As much as we'd like to believe that our work is great and that we're infallible, we're not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience. These are not small European art films we're making.

Harold Ramis

How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood.

Harold Ramis

We all wish we could be in more than one place at the same time. People with families feel guilty all the time-if we spend too much time with our family, we feel we're not working hard enough.

Harold Ramis

There's a personal story of my own that I will write at some point, and it's a film that I will happily make. It could very well be the next thing I do, unless someone shows me something great.

Harold Ramis

That's one of the great things about DVD: In addition to reaching people who didn't catch the movie in theaters, you get to have this interaction of sorts.

Harold Ramis

With both Caddyshack and Vacation, it's not like the subjects were serious enough that they engaged my interest for another round. I love the characters, and the actors were great, but I didn't see the need to make another Vacation movie.

Harold Ramis

I had a lot of fun working with John Candy. We had a pretty good rapport.

Harold Ramis

Acting is all about big hair and funny props... All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it.

Harold Ramis

Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.

Harold Ramis

I'm not a believer in the pratfall. I don't think it's funny just to have someone fall down.

Harold Ramis

I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.

Harold Ramis

A psychologist said to me, there are only two important questions you have to ask yourself. What do you really feel? And, what do you really want? If you can answer those two, you probably can leave your neuroses behind you.

Harold Ramis

First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?

Harold Ramis

I believe things happen that can't be explained, but so many people seem intent on explaining them. Everyone has an answer for them. Either aliens or things from the spirit world.

Harold Ramis

I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.

Harold Ramis

I'd like to think I'd never do a gratuitous fart joke.

Harold Ramis

If Chevy Chase had not been an actor, he might have been a very popular guy in advertising or whatever field he would have gone into, because of his charisma.

Harold Ramis

It's like the old rule-if you introduce a gun into the first act of a play, it's going to be used in the third act. So if you do a movie about criminals, you have to accept there's going to be Some action.

Harold Ramis

My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.

Harold Ramis

My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.

Harold Ramis

Author Bio

  • NameHarold Ramis
  • DescriptionAmerican actor, director, and writer specializing in comedy
  • BornNovember 21, 1944
  • DiedFebruary 24, 2014
  • CountryUnited States Of America; Norway
  • ProfessionActor; Film Director; Writer; Screenwriter