The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

At the movies, we are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure. The directors used to say they were showing us its real face and how ugly it was in order to sensitize us to its horrors. You don't have to be very keen to see that they are now in fact desensitizing us.

For perhaps most Americans, TV is an apppliance, not to be used selectively but to be turned on - there's always something to watch.

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

If you're afraid of movies that excite your senses, you're afraid of movies.

We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn't fully grasp when we saw the work. The judgments we can usually make for ourselves.

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