The very fact of snow is such an amazement.

There was a bedrock of respect that developed over the years,

If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing.

The sad thing is that when movies like this fail, executives think that proves there’s no audience for unusual, original pictures – because they think they’ve made one.

What am I to think when six weekends of this year already have been won by slasher movies that were not screened for critics and got bad ratings on the tomato meter when they were...

Well, you know, a lot of modern directors and their movies are influenced by the flat lighting and textbook cutting style of television.

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.

I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.

One, don’t wait for inspiration, just start the damned thing. Two, once you begin, keep on until the end. How do you know how the story should begin until you find out where it’s going?

An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its ‘self-help’ section: ‘For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.

Gene was a lifelong friend and our professional competition only strengthened that bond, … He showed great bravery in the months after his surgery, continuing to work as long as he could.

It’s a good question, because a movie isn’t good or bad based on its politics. It’s usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.

It’s hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie.

The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can’t change your mind, because God sure isn’t going to change His.

You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can’t take your eyes away from it… Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.

[If you like little films about birds you might also consider] The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. … could be a surprise underground hit, because it is so warm and moving.

I begin to feel like most Americans don’t understand the First Amendment, don’t understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don’t understand that it’s the responsibility of the citizen to speak out.

Socrates told us, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I think he’s calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the...

We laugh, that we may not cry.

We had lots of big fights, … We were people who came together one day a week to work together and the other six days of the week we were competitors on two daily newspapers...

It’s funny that there was so much disturbance about having a Catholic in the White House with Kennedy, and when we finally get a religion in the White House that’s causing a lot of conflicts,...

In thinking about ‘depressing movies,’ many people don’t realize that all bad movies are depressing, and no good movies are.

Oh, here comes Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and Jimmy Smits! [Announcing the arrival of Mel Blanc and Jimmy Smits to the Academy Awards ceremony.]

Beguiled by George S. Bush’s easy smile and casual indifference to the details, we are on the brink of electing him to office. This isn’t choosing a president, it’s casting the lead in a sitcom...

I’ve been told that I am evil. I’ve been told that I am behind the persecution of millions of Americans. That I have encouraged hate toward gays. I’ve received both very brief and obscene messages,...

I don’t think Bush was legitimately elected President.

Sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will.

As someone who admired the freshness and energy of the earlier films, I was amazed, at the end of ‘Episode II,’ to realize that I had not heard one line of quotable, memorable dialogue.

Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.

All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it.

A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that.

I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, “If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don’t, you won’t be able to understand your own...

Not only can I not describe the plot of this movie, but I have a feeling the last scene reverses half of what I thought I knew (or didn’t know).

I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to reason.

The children of Birmingham did not really die in the State of Alabama, however, because Alabama is a state of mind, and in the minds of the [white] men who rule Alabama, those children had...

His career can be summed up as the case of a man who needed a financial manager.

The Academy is paranoid about its image.

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

All over the web there are some very good critics and it’s become for people who are interested. It’s become a very good way to get to reviews and involve yourself in discussions.

A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.

A corner is important. It provides privacy and an anchor and lets you exist independently of the room.

If there is such a thing as a lock on an Oscar nomination, … Hoffman has one.

I think that probably the – I don’t give quotes to studios. They have to get those out of the paper or from television. So they wouldn’t have had my quote opening day.

Aren’t you getting tired of people hating one another? What do they think they get out of it?

It was her unconvincing, elusive self-defense that continued to damn her.

The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise.

The Batman movie I’ve been waiting for.

And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don’t just try to shut them...

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear

Of all the purposes of education, I think the most useful is this: It prepares you to keep yourself entertained. It gives you a better chance of an interesting job.