tasteful and colossal are - in movies, at least - basically antipathetic.

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.

Television as we have it isn't an art form - it's a piece of furniture that is good for a few things.

Reality, like God and History, tends to direct people to wherever they want to go.

What is getting older if it isn't learning more ways that you're vulnerable?

Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.

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.