A. O. Scott Quotes

He that climbs a ladder must begin at the first round.

I'm never afraid to try something if I think it's funny. And I know I'll regret it if I don't.

The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one's mind and still be able to function is the mark of a superior mind

A woman should be able to kiss a man beautifully and romantically without any desire to be either his wife or his mistress.

It doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have [in aliens]. I just don't buy the idea that we're alone. There's got to be some form of life out there.

If I were ever stranded on a desert island, there would be 3 things I’d need: food, shelter, and a grip.

Buff Bagwell ain't nothin' but a chippendale dancer!

War is the only game in which both sides lose.

If you believe in the power of words, you can bring about physical changes in the universe.

I tend to get my hands into all these other things and all these distractions, and after a while I start feeling depleted.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along―the same person that I am today.

We strive toward a goal, and whether we achieve it or not is important, but it's not what's most important. What matters is how we move toward that goal.

Repentance is not punishment, it is the hope filled path to a more glorious future.

Life is so damned hard, so damned hard... It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does.

I won't work with people who won't give me the freedom to be me.

As an African American child growing up in the segregated South, I was told, one way or another, almost every day of my life, that I wasn't as good as a white child.

It is in the turmoil of chaos that we discover what, if anything, we are.

If you're feeling insecure and you need to feel special, the best place to go is somewhere foreign where people treat you as special because you're different.

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

My politics are of a practical kind - the integrity of the country, the supremacy of the Federal government, an honorable peace, or none at all.

I prefer a three-piece suit myself. Very sixties rock and roll. But they're not too quirky. Businessmen could wear them.

Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.

We don't read novels to have an experience like life. Heck, we're living lives, complete with all the incompleteness. We turn to fiction to have an author assure us that it means something.

Stay on the Lord's side, and you will win every time.

We took risks. We knew we took them. Things have come out against us. We have no cause for complaint.

To wait idly is the worst of conditions.

Brave rifles! Veterans! You have been baptized in fire and blood and have come out steel!

There's a sort of rage a man feels when he's been deceived where he most trusted. It compares to no other anger.

I sometimes think the contemporary white American is more culturally deprived than the Indian.

Writing the songs and producing the songs and arranging them and recording them is your canvas and your palette and your brush.

Words were medicine; they were magic and invisible. They came from nothing into sound and meaning. They were beyond price; they could neither be bought nor sold.

Truth is not always a pleasant thing.

In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.

I like a man who smells good. Puts on cologne; lotions his body. It keeps me wanting. I like feeling that way.

The world will knock you down plenty. You don't need to be doing it to yourself.

I respectfully decline the invitation to join your hallucination.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become.

Cats are a very mysterious kind of folk. There is always more passing in their minds than we are aware of.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

Books can lift our spirits, heal our wounds, steel our courage and strengthen our religious resolve.

I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun.

There are times when the adoption process is exhausting and painful and makes you want to scream. But, I am told, so does childbirth.

His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.

He had no plans, no definite intentions, except to kiss her lips again, to hold her in his arms.

Dead fish don't swim around in jealous tides.

Integrity is never painless.

We are very near the end, but have not and will not lose our good cheer.