Great movies are rarely perfect movies.

When I see those ads with the quote 'You'll have to see this picture twice,' I know it's the kind of picture I don't want to see once.

Allowing for exceptions, there is still one basic difference between the traditional arts and the mass-media arts: in the traditional arts, the artist grows; in a mass medium, the artist decays profitably.

The problem with a popular art form is that those who want something more are in a hopeless minority compared with the millions who are always seeing it for the first time, or for the reassurance and gratification of seeing the conventions fulfilled again.

Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.

If there's anything to learn from the history of movies, it's that corruption leads to further corruption, not to innocence.