I hate to go out on a limb after only one viewing, but Nashville strikes me as Altman's best film, and the most exciting dramatic musical since Blue Angel.

I've always said to people that auteurism is nice, but it's hypothetical, and gradually you learn how much or how little influence different directors had.

Movies are as old as psychoanalysis. So if I were to put you or anyone else on a couch and say, 'Tell me your favorite movies,' it would be a way of psychoanalyzing you.

Hitchcock is the most-daring avant-garde film-maker in America today.

It is cynicism, and not idealism, that is generally the mark of youthful immaturity, or rather it is the cynic who is generally the most foolish romantic.

Lola Montes is, in my unhumble opinion, the greatest film of all time, and I am willing to stake my critical reputation, such as it is, on this one proposition above all others.

I'm afraid you can't create tragedy out of abnormal psychology.

I was a solipsist and a narcissist and much too arrogant. I have a lot more compassion now, but it took a long time.

I never argue with people about movies.

Tokyo Sonata speaks to us, with feeling and passion, as one of the most eloquent statements on the world today that we are likely to see in this moviegoing year.

Lemon Tree is well worth seeing as a first-class artistic achievement bridging two civilizations.

To make this world a whole lot brighter, when I grow up I'll be a writer.

Anybody caught selling macrame in public should be dyed a natural color and hung out to dry.

Fall, then figure out what to do on the way down.

One is not low because of birth nor does birth make one holy. Deeds alone make one low, deeds alone make one holy.

Couples with children who do win a divorce, cause such social havoc that they should have to pay a special divorce tax.

Here was this man Tom Guthrie in Holt standing at the back window in the kitchen of his house smoking cigarettes and looking out over the back lot where the sun was just coming up.

The most wretched have yet hope.

I throw as hard as I can when I think I have to throw as hard as I can.

Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself - to serve.

An island Utopia in a modern, busy, everyday world. A land where there are neither rich nor poor. A heaven on earth - without a fence around it.