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

For a while in the twenties and thirties, art was talked about as a substitute for religion; now B movies are a substitute for religion.

Movies that are consciously life-affirming are to be consciously avoided.

Moviemaking is so male-dominated now that they think they’re being pro-feminine when they have women punching each other out.

In San Francisco, vulgarity, "bad taste," ostentation are regarded as a kind of alien blight, an invasion or encroachment from outside. In Los Angeles, there is so much money and power connected with ostentation that is no longer ludicrous: it commands a kind of respect. For if the mighty behave like this, then quiet good taste means that you can't afford the conspicuous expenditures, and you become a little ashamed of your modesty and propriety.

if you think it so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets.

An artist must either give up art or develop.