The secret to success is written on the doors of this auditorium. One side says 'Push,' the other side says 'Pull.

To be a critic, you have to have maybe three percent education, five percent intelligence, two percent style, and 90 percent gall and egomania in equal parts.

All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you.

Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let's just wish each other a bileless New Year and leave it at that.

In this era of affluence and of permissiveness, we have, in all but cultural areas, bred a nation of overprivileged youngsters, saturated with vitamins, television and plastic toys.

Movies suddenly became film and cinema an art form and terribly chic.

The one and original lovable monster is lost amid all the hydraulic manipulations in what now emerges as the story of a dumb blonde who falls for a huge plastic finger.

It is essential for the good of criticism that both the critic and the public face the fact that a review is not the voice of God.

The critics who love are the severe ones . . . we know our relationship must be based on honesty.

I opened my mouth, but the same words came to me again and again.I will not scream. I will not scream. I will not scream.

Story = Character + Predicament + Attempted Extrication

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.

People are not problems to be solved. They are mysteries to be explored.

I think that the churches do a better job in many respects than the government does in various kinds of things. Extending aid, the helpfulness, and so on, yes.

Thinkers are scarce as gold; but he whose thoughts embrace all his subject, and who pursues it uninterruptedly and fearless of consequences, is a diamond of enormous size.

Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.

Poverty is not an act of God. It is the result of flawed policy, and that is a moral challenge.

History is a lie commonly agreed upon.

I can't say that I always want to get out of bed, you know.