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.

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.

Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense.

Television represents what happens to a medium when the artists have no power and the businessmen are in full, unquestioned control.

If you use Hollywood as the test tissue for mankind, what could the prognosis be?

Robert Redford ... has turned almost alarmingly blond-he's gone past platinum, he must be into plutonium; his hair is coordinated with his teeth.

Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.