Did Woody Allen ever compare the fears of public speaking and death?

No, he did not. I just read a May18th post by Dr. Michael Thweatt titled The Fear of Death on his Psychosmology blog which bizarrely claimed that:

“Woody Allen once observed that the fear of public speaking was the number one reported phobia, even ranking above the fear of death. He concluded that people must be more afraid of delivering the eulogy than being in the coffin.”

A Google search did not reveal any source for that statement other than Dr. Thewatt’s blog post, so it just is his ipse dixit. Apparently he confused Woody Allen with Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry made that comparison on multiple occasions, as I discussed in March 2015.

Woody said some other things about life and death like that:

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.”

“Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”

“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”

“On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.”

“It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.”

“Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

The caricature of Woody Allen by Harutyun Chalikyan came from Wikimedia Commons.