Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

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

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

The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new

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

I felt as if I had attended the funeral of someone I didn't know.

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.