Annie Hall quotes

View Quote Allison: I'm in the midst of doing my thesis.
Alvy: On what?
Allison: Political commitment in twentieth century literature.
Alvy: You, you, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
Alvy: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the left.

View Quote Mrs. Singer: He's been depressed. All of a sudden, he can't do anything.
Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Mrs. Singer: Tell Dr. Flicker. [To the doctor] It's something he read.
Doctor: Something he read, huh?
Alvy: The universe is expanding...Well, the universe is everything, and if it's expanding, some day it will break apart and that will be the end of everything.
Mrs. Singer: What is that your business? [To the doctor] He stopped doing his homework.
Alvy: What's the point?
Mrs. Singer: What has the universe got to do with it? You're here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding.
Doctor: It won't be expanding for billions of years, yet Alvy. And we've got to try to enjoy ourselves while we're here, huh, huh? Ha, ha, ha.

View Quote [to Annie] You are extremely sexy, unbelievably sexy...You know what you are, you're polymorphously perverse...you're exceptional in bed because you got - you get pleasure in every part of your body when I touch it...Like the tip of your nose, and if I stroke your teeth or your kneecaps...you get excited.

View Quote The other important joke for me is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx but I think it appears originally in Freud's Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious - and it goes like this. I'm paraphrasing. I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member. That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

View Quote I'm obsessed with uh, with death, I think. Big - big subject with me, yeah. I have a very pessimistic view of life. You should know this about me if we're gonna go out. You know, I - I feel that life is - is divided up into the horrible and the miserable. Those are the two categories, you know. The - the horrible would be like, um, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. You know, and the miserable is everyone else. That's - that's - so - so - when you go through life - you should be thankful that you're miserable because you're very lucky to be miserable.

View Quote Partygoer #1: Right now, it's only a notion. But I think I can get money to make it into a concept. And later turn it into an idea.

View Quote Alvy's analyst: How often do you sleep together?
Annie's analyst: Do you have sex often?
Alvy: Hardly ever, maybe three times a week.
Annie: Constantly, I'd say three times a week.

View Quote Alvy: Well, I didn't start out spying. I thought I'd surprise you. Pick you up after school.
Annie: Yeah, but you wanted to keep the relationship flexible. Remember, it's your phrase.
Alvy: Oh stop it, you're having an affair with your college professor, that jerk that teaches that incredible crap course, Contemporary Crisis in Western Man...
Annie: Existential Motifs in Russian Literature. You're really close.
Alvy: What's the difference? It's all mental masturbation.
Annie: Oh, well, now we're finally getting to a subject you know something about.
Alvy: Hey, don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love.
Annie: We're not having an affair. He's married. He just happens to think I'm neat.
Alvy: Neat! What are you, 12 years old? That's one of your Chippewa Falls expressions.
Annie: Who cares? Who cares?
Alvy: Next thing, you know, he'll find you keen and peachy, you know. Next thing, you know, he's got his hand on your ass.
Annie: You've always had hostility towards David, ever since I mentioned him.
Alvy: Dave? You call your teacher David?
Annie: It's his name.
Alvy: It's a Biblical name, right? What does he call you, Bathsheba?
Annie: Alvy, Alvy, you're the one who never wanted to make a real commitment. You don't think I'm smart enough. We had that argument just last month, or don't you remember that day?

View Quote Actor Alvy: [in Alvy's play] You're a thinking person. How can you choose this lifestyle?
Actor Annie: What is so incredibly great about New York? It's a dying city. You - you read Death in Venice.
Actor Alvy: You didn't read Death in Venice till I gave it to you.
Actor Annie: Well, you only give me books with the word 'death' in the title.
Actor Alvy: It's an important issue.
Actor Annie: Alvy, you are totally incapable of enjoying life. You're like New York. You're an island.
Actor Alvy: OK, if that's all that we've been through together means to you, I guess it's better if we just said goodbye, once and for all! You know, it's funny, after all the serious talks and passionate moments that it ends here - in a health-food restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. Goodbye, Sunny.
Actor Annie: Wait! I'm - I'm gonna go with you. I love you.

View Quote Alvy: Do you know what a hostile gesture that is to me?
Annie: I know, because of our sexual problem, right?
Alvy: Everybody on line at The New Yorker has to know our rate of intercourse?
Annie: You know, you're so ego-centric that if I miss my therapy, you can only think of it in terms of how it affects you!
...
Alvy: What do you mean, our sexual problem? I mean, I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.
Annie: OK, I'm very sorry. My sexual problem, OK? My sexual problem. Huh? [A man in front of them in line turns back to look at them, and then turns away]
Alvy: I never read that. That was, that was Henry James, right? Novel, huh, the sequel to The Turn of the Screw, 'My Sexual Problem'?

View Quote Annie: So I told her about, about the family and about my feelings towards men and about my relationship with my brother. And then she mentioned penis envy. Do you know about that?
Alvy: Me? I'm, I'm one of the few males who suffers from that...
Annie: She said that I was very guilty about my impulses towards marriage and children. And then I remember when I was a kid how I accidently saw my parents making love.
Alvy: Really. All this happened in the first hour? That's amazing. I'm off fifteen years. You know, I have nothing like that.
Annie: I told her my dream and then I cried.
Alvy: Cried? I have never once cried. That's fantastic to me. I whine. I sit and I whine.
Annie: Wait a minute Alvy. In my dream, Frank Sinatra is holding his pillow across my face and I can't breathe...strangling me...
Alvy: No kidding. Oh sure! Because he's a singer and you're a singer. You know, so it's perfect. So you're trying to suffocate yourself. It makes perfect sense. It's a perfect analytic kind of insight.
Annie: She said your name was Alvy Singer.
Alvy: What do you mean? Me?
Annie: Yeah, yeah you. Because in the dream, I break Sinatra's glasses.
Alvy: Sinatra had glasses? You never said Sinatra had glasses. So what are you saying? That I'm suffocating you?...
Annie: Oh and God, Alvy, I did this really terrible thing to him. Because then when he sang, it was in this real high-pitched voice.
Alvy: What did the doctor say?
Annie: Well, she said that I should probably come five times a week. And you know something? I don't think I mind analysis at all. The only question is, is 'Will it change my wife?'
Alvy: Will it change your wife?
Annie: Will it change my life?
Alvy: Yeah, but you said, 'Will it change my wife?'
Annie: No I didn't. I said, 'Will it change my life, Alvy?'
Alvy: [to the camera] She said, 'Will it change my wife?' You heard that, because you were there. So I'm not crazy.
Annie: And then I told her about how I didn't think you'd ever take me really seriously because you don't think that I'm smart enough.
Alvy: Why do you always bring that up? Because I encourage you to take adult education courses? I think it's a wonderful thing. You meet wonderful interesting professors.

View Quote Alvy: Hey, is something wrong?
Annie: No, why?
Alvy: I don't know. It's like you're removed.
Annie: No, I'm fine.
Alvy: Are you with me?
Annie: Uh, huh.
Alvy: I don't know. You seem sort of distant.
Annie: Let's just do it, all right?
Alvy: Is it my imagination, or are you just going through the motions?
Ghost Annie: Alvy, do you remember where I put my drawing pad? Because while you two are doing that, I think I'm going to do some drawing.
Alvy: You see, that's what I call removed.
Annie: No you have my body.
Alvy: Yeah, but I want the whole thing.
Annie: Well, I need grass.
Alvy: Well, it ruins it for me if you have grass. Because you know, I'm like a comedian. So if I get a laugh from a person who's high, it doesn't count, you know, 'cause they're always laughing.
Annie: Were you always funny?
Alvy: Hey, what is this - an interview? We're supposed to be making love.

View Quote Maybe we should just call the police. Dial 911. It's the lobster squad. It'll turn up in our bed at night. Talk to him. You speak shellfish...Annie, there's a big lobster behind the refrigerator. I can't get it out...Maybe if I put a little dish of butter sauce here with a nutcracker, it will run out the other side?...We should have gotten steaks, 'cause they don't have legs. They don't run around.

View Quote You know, even as a kid, I always went for the wrong women. I think that's my problem. When my mother took me to see Snow White, everyone fell in love with Snow White. I immediately fell for the Wicked Queen.

View Quote Alvy: So what - you-you're not gonna come back to New York?
Annie: What's so great about New York? I mean, it's a dying city. You read Death in Venice.
Alvy: Hey, you didn't read Death in Venice till I bought it for ya.
Annie: That's right, that's right. You only gave me books with the word 'death' in the titles.
Alvy: That's right, 'cause it's an important issue.
Annie: Alvy, you're incapable of enjoying life, you know that? I mean you're like New York City. You're just this person. You're like this island unto yourself.
Alvy: I can't enjoy anything unless everybody is. If one guy is starving someplace, that puts a crimp in my evening.