Let's face it: Sadness and evil are always more believable than happiness and love. When a movie reviewer calls a film "realistic," everyone knows what that means--it means the movie has an unhappy ending.

When Arthur Schlesinger Sr. pioneered the 'presidential greatness poll' in 1948, the top five were Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jefferson. Only Wilson appears to be seriously fading, probably because his support for the World War I-era Sedition Act now seems outrageous; in this analogy, Woodrow is like the Doors and the Sedition Act is Oliver Stone.

As of right now, I am in love with her, and that love is the biggest problem in my life.

Real people are actively trying to live like fake people, so real people are no less fake. Every comparison becomes impractical. This is why the impractical has become totally acceptable; impracticality almost seems cool.

When I was a film critic, the reason I kind of found it disenchanting was because the things that I wanted to talk about were the ideas in the movie, the theme of it, and contextual elements that weren't necessarily central to the story. But the only thing people really wanted was a plot description and how many stars I'd give it. It didn't matter how much effort you put into writing a piece, they looked at it solely as a consumer's guide toward going or not going to films.

I think this is the kind of thing where we're rapidly moving toward an age where most of the populace will be almost unable to imagine life without an Internet component interlocked with it.

I remember saying things, but I have no idea what was said. It was generally a friendly conversation.” —Associated Press reporter Jack Sullivan, attempting to recount a 3 A.M. exchange we had at a dinner party and inadvertently describing the past ten years of my life.