Film criticism became the means whereby a stream of young intellectuals could go straight from the campus film society into the professionals' screening room without managing to get a glimpse of the real world in between.

All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you.

Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let's just wish each other a bileless New Year and leave it at that.

Movies suddenly became film and cinema an art form and terribly chic.

To be a critic, you have to have maybe three percent education, five percent intelligence, two percent style, and 90 percent gall and egomania in equal parts.

In this era of affluence and of permissiveness, we have, in all but cultural areas, bred a nation of overprivileged youngsters, saturated with vitamins, television and plastic toys.

It is essential for the good of criticism that both the critic and the public face the fact that a review is not the voice of God.