Great movies are rarely perfect movies.

For perhaps most Americans, TV is an apppliance, not to be used selectively but to be turned on - there's always something to watch.

It's sometimes discouraging to see all of a director's movies, because there's so much repetition. The auteurists took this to be a sign of a director's artistry, that you could recognize his movies. But it can also be a sign that he's a hack.

Movies, far more than the traditional arts, are tied to big money. Without a few independent critics, there's nothing between the public and the advertisers.

If you're afraid of movies that excite your senses, you're afraid of movies.

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.