Brooks Atkinson

“It seems not to have been written. It is the quintessence of life. It is the basic truth.”

“Good plays drive bad playgoers crazy.”

“Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.”

“There is no joy so great as that of reporting that a good play has come to town.”

“The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.”

“People everywhere enjoy believing things that they know are not true. It spares them the ordeal of thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for what they know.”

“The most fatal illusion is the narrow point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.”

“It takes most men five years to recover from a college education, and to learn that poetry is as vital to thinking as knowledge.”

“In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.”

“After each war there is a little less democracy to save.”

“Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.”