I really only worked for about a month on ‘Meatballs.’ What happened was that Ivan Reitman figured out that studios wanted to meet everybody involved with ‘Animal House’ except the producer. So he thought he’d better start directing. – Harold Ramis
Multiplicity was a movie that tested really well. People seeing the movie really liked it, but then the studio couldn’t market it. We opened on a weekend with nine other films. – 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
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
The simple idiot’s advice I give to screenwriters who say they want to sell a screenplay is, ‘Write good.’ – Harold Ramis
The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House. – 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
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
Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone. – 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
I had this ‘War and Peace’ thing of wanting to experience war as a kind of incredible human enterprise. I even applied to Officer Candidate School. Then the practical side of me kicked in and I thought, ‘I really don’t want to get drafted.’ So I went down to the physical and checked every psychological disorder and drug on the medical history form. – Harold Ramis
I can’t imagine a successful comedy movie without a successful comedy performance at the heart of it. – Harold Ramis
I was raised Jewish and fully embrace the core beliefs of Judaism – the ones that I identify as core beliefs, which are essentially freedom and justice. But the supernatural aspects of religion were never important to me. – 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
I used to be married to a woman who pursued every spiritual trend with tremendous passion and dragged me along. I don’t believe in anything. I’d seen mediums and readers. – Harold Ramis
You just make sure you don’t screw it up. It’s going to work as long as you don’t mess it up. Hopefully you have plenty of those moments in a big comedy. – Harold Ramis
My job is to come up with something that you like and you agree with that you would play wholeheartedly. If we disagree, I may not be doing my job correctly. – Harold Ramis
I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit. – Harold Ramis
I always point out to my Passover guests that the Hebrews were not living in isolation. They were at the crossroads of several great, elaborate cultures with their own mythology and religion and art and architecture and cultural belief. In fact, so many of the mythologies of the world describe the same events, just from different points of view. – Harold Ramis
Everybody has a Bill Murray story. He just punishes people for reasons they can’t figure out. – 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 would remake ‘Club Paradise.’ I thought the story was cool, the setting was great. Everything lined up, except I wrote it for Bill Murray and John Cleese. – Harold Ramis
We are all several different people. There are different aspects of our nature that are competing. – Harold Ramis
You probably can’t name more than a handful of comedies that would qualify for Best Picture. I can think of a lot of comedy screenplays; Woody Allen has had numerous nominations for his screenplays. But most comedies are calculated. They tend to pander. They’re not about anything important. – 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
