Penelope Gilliatt Quotes

The masters of the comic spirit are often our prophets.

[On John Cleese:] He sometimes seems to swat at his own thoughts as if they were bees.

jokes are ideally pleasurable. They are an act of assassination without a corpse, a moment of total annihilation that paradoxically makes anything possible.

[On Watermelon Man:] ... it is impossible to look at this film without its giving you a share in its insane bad taste, which is rather companionable of it.

People in a temper often say a lot of silly, terrible things they mean.

A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit's conjecture is to endanger the species.

Black and white are the most ravishing colors of all in film.

Funniness is the wild card in the pack.

It [humor] inhabits the marginal.

Rosalia is dressed in raven clothes forty years too old for her, so that she seems to be in mourning for her life.

Great comedy calls large matters into question.

Why is it that beautiful women never seem to have curiosity? Is it because they know they're classical? With classical things the Lord finished the job. Ordinary ugly people know they're deficient and they go on looking for the pieces.

Movies have now reached the same stage as sex - it's all technique and no feeling.