Albert Brooks was born Albert Einstein but changed his name for obvious reasons. His older brother, Bob Einstein, is known for his fictional character "Super Dave" and for his role as Marty Funkhouser on the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. Their father was the vaudeville and radio comedian known as "Parkyakarkus." He died on stage of a heart attack in 1958, when Albert was 11, during a Friar's Club roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

According to David Geffen in a 1987 interview, Brooks was paid $150,000 for Lost in America.

One of the boys who harass David in his job as a crossing guard is David Michael Katz, son of Marty Katz, the producer of Lost in America. Ten years later, David Katz was accepted into the American Film Institute's directing program.

The man driving the Mercedes near the movie's end is Herbert Nanas, executive producer of Lost in America and Brooks's manager. Besides his producing credit on five of Brooks's movies, Nanas has also produced several Sylvester Stallone movies (he can be seen in a bit part in Rocky II, 1979) and the Michael Ritchie baseball film The Scout (1994), in which Brooks starred.

The final scene depicts David and Linda returning to New York City but the shot actually shows David driving away from the city on the road leading out of the Lincoln Tunnel on the New Jersey side. The angle of the shot and position of the road, however, does look like they're driving toward the city

Cinematographer Eric Saarinen got his start working on the rock documentaries Jimi Plays Berkeley (1971) and Fillmore (1972). His father and grandfather were, respectively, the architects Eero and Eliel Saarinen. Eric also shot two other Brooks films: Real Life (1979) and Modern Romance (1981).

Co-writer Monica Mcgowan Johnson also worked on the scripts for Brooks's movies Real Life, Modern Romance, and The Muse (1999), her last credited screenplay before her death in 2010 at the age of 64.

This was the film debut of Art Frankel, who played the amused employment agent. Frankel was then 57 years old.

Memorable Quotes from LOST IN AMERICA

REX REED (Himself): "If it's really funny, I'll laugh. I don't need 40 other people to remind me that I should be laughing."

LINDA (Julie Hagerty): "Sometimes I wish we were a little more irresponsible."

DAVID (Albert Brooks): "I'm insane and responsible. This is a potent combination."

LINDA: "I don't like anything anymore. I don't like my life, I don't like my house, I don't like anything. ... Nothing's changing. I'm not, David's not, we've just stopped. Life's going by."

DAVID: "Shut up Brad! Your song stunk, I hate your suit and I could hurt you! ... I've seen the future! And it's a bald-headed man from New York!"

DAVID: "He'll buy that boat from that stupid boat catalog he's been making me look at for the last two months, and he will crash that boat off Catalina Island, and he will drown and die and seals will eat him."

DAVID: "Linda, quit, I'll wait right here."
LINDA: "Why - I can't quit now."
DAVID: "Yes you can!"
LINDA: "No I can't!"
DAVID: "I did!"
LINDA: "I know, but even if I wanted to, my boss isn't here, there's no one I can quit to."
DAVID: "Well, it's time to get out. We have to touch Indians. We have to see the mountains and the prairies and the whole rest of that song. Let's make love right now. I want to have sex with you right here."

DAVID: "We got a ride on the inflation train you wouldn't believe."

DAVID: "America, look out--here we come!"

DAVID: "What's this?"
BELLMAN (Radu Gavor): "Junior bridal suite."
DAVID: "Gee, I gave a guy a hundred bucks to get the best bridal suite in the house. Is there a senior bridal suite?"
BELLMAN: "I don't know."
DAVID: "But I gave him $100."
BELLMAN: "I don't know."
DAVID: "Can I get into this room? Is there a big living room that goes here?"
BELLMAN: "I don't know."
DAVID: "Do you think there'd be a way to get one large heart mattress? I don't think you can push those together."
BELLMAN: "I don't know."
DAVID: "Not at all?"
BELLMAN: "I don't know."

DAVID: "As the boldest experiment in advertising history, you give us our money back."
CASINO MANAGER (Garry Marshall): "I beg your pardon?"

DAVID: "Maybe I just didn't explain the nest egg well enough. It's a very sacred thing, the nest egg. And if you had understood the nest egg principle, as we will now call it in the first of many lectures that you will have to get because if we are ever to acquire another nest egg, we both have to understand what it means. ..."
LINDA: "I understand the nest egg."
DAVID: "Please do me a favor. Don't use that word, it's off limits to you. Only those in this house who understand it might use it. And don't use any part of it either. Don't use nest, don't use egg."

DAVID: "I've lost a woman! A whole woman!"

DAVID: "We're in hell. We've entered hell! When?"

DAVID: "My legs are asleep, let's live here."

DAVID: "I'm trying to change my life."
EMPLOYMENT AGENT (Art Frankel): "You couldn't change your life on a hundred thousand a year?"

DAVID: "What was your plan?"
LINDA: "I was thinking we go to New York as soon as we can."
DAVID: "And I eat shit?"
LINDA: "Yeah."
DAVID: "My plan, too!"

Compiled by Rob Nixon