The Academy is paranoid about its image.

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.

One difference between film noir and more straightforward crime pictures is that noir is more open to human flaws and likes to embed them in twisty plot lines.

To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.

You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can't take your eyes away from it... Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.

I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic - the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win.

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people.

What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods. Period. That's it. Animal protein is bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Forget the ads: Milk and eggs are bad for you.

I do not fear death. I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.

If you change your words to positive reinforcement, the negative reactions will lose their power

Read to lead in order to succeed.

I'd rather die my way than live yours.

Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture.

Although native Africans domesticated some plants in the Sahel and in Ethiopia and in tropical West Africa, they acquired valuable domestic animals only later, from the north.

What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?

People in the White House work hard, whatever administration. They get rewarded in psychic income, a sense that they are involved in something bigger than themselves, that it's important.

If you're a smart writer, you listen.

The traces of our life here will lie cold and still, dreaming, like the brittle eyes of dolls in an abandoned cabin, and the last men will look to them for explanations, or apologies.

I'm not so much into the beats. I'm more into the spiritual side of the music.