The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

The truth of a thing is in the feel of it, not in the think of it.

Don't get obsessed with not liking a movie.

Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good and it trains you to think objectively when you're in trouble

You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film—and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level—but I don't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point.

How does anybody ever think of anything?

The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache. This shattering recognition of our mortality is at the root of far more mental illness than I suspect even psychiatrists are aware.