An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious.

In good films, there is always a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to interpret.

Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it.

With the modern diseases (once TB, now cancer) the romantic idea that the disease expresses the character is invariably extended to assert that the character causes the disease -- because it has not expressed itself. Passion moves inward, striking and blighting the deepest cellular recesses.

Most men experience getting older with regret, apprehension. But most women experience it even more painfully: with shame. Aging is a man's destiny, something that must happen because he is a human being. For a woman, aging is not only her destiny . . . it is also her vulnerability.

I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.

Art is not only about something; it is something. A work of art is a thing in the world, not just a text or commentary on the world.