Great movies are rarely perfect movies.

It is a depressing fact that Americans tend to confuse morality and art (to the detriment of both) and that, among the educated, morality tends to mean social consciousness.

in show business there's not much point in asking yourself if someone really likes you or if he just thinks you can be useful to him, because there's no difference.

If it took some effort to see old movies, we might try to find out which were the good ones, and if people saw only the good ones maybe they would still respect old movies. As it is, people sit and watch movies that audiences walked out on thirty years ago.

Movies are our cheap and easy expression, the sullen art of displaced persons.

I’m frequently asked why I don’t write my memoirs. I think I have.

if you think it so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets.