When I go to a great movie, I can live somebody else's life a little bit for a while. I can walk in somebody else's shoes. I can see what it feels like to be a member of a different gender, a different race, a different economic class, to live in a different time, to have a different belief.

Gene [Siskel] often mentioned something François Truffaut once told him: the most beautiful sight in a movie theater is to walk down to the front, turn around, and look at the light from the screen reflected on the upturned faces of the members of the audience.

In thinking about 'depressing movies,' many people don't realize that all bad movies are depressing, and no good movies are.

Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

Artists are rarely members of the popular crowd.

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

Clouds do not really look like camels or sailing ships or castles in the sky. They are simply a natural process at work. So too, perhaps, are our lives.