McLuhanism and the media have broken the back of the book business; they've freed people from the shame of not reading. They've rationalized becoming stupid and watching television.

If it took some effort to see old movies, we might try to find out which were the good ones, and if people saw only the good ones maybe they would still respect old movies. As it is, people sit and watch movies that audiences walked out on thirty years ago.

Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.

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

A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is.

It seems likely that many of the young who don't wait for others to call them artists, but simply announce that they are, don't have the patience to make art.

There is something spurious about the very term 'a movie made for TV,' because what you make for TV is a TV program.