Roger Ebert

“People never think of themselves as choosing to be politically correct. They simply think in the way that they do.”

“Why do alcoholics begin down the same hazardous road day after day? They are in search of that elusive window of well-being that opens when you drink your way out of a hangover and aren't yet drunk all over again. The alcoholic's day consists of trying to keep that window open.”

“Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.”

“No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, and I suspect none will ever be able to provide one for 9/11. Such subjects overwhelm art.”

“The right really dominates radio, and it's amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn't. They want to shut other people up. They really don't understand the First Amendment.”

“It is reckless to make broad generalizations about any group of people.”

“To die is one thing. How much worse to know that all the life that ever existed on this planet, and all it ever achieved, was to be obliterated?”

“' The Lucky One' is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true.”

“My motto: 'No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.'”

“It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.”

“We don't have a lot of class-conscious filmmaking.”

“I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest.”

“It's a good question, because a movie isn't good or bad based on its politics. It's usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.”

“And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up.”

“But the fact is, most people are not going to be rich someday.”

“Anyone who reads advice books about romance has one problem to begin with: bad taste in literature.”

“From a dramatic viewpoint, there are few professions that grant their members entry into other lives, high among them cops, doctors, clergymen, journalists and prostitutes. Perhaps that explains why they figure in so much television and cinema. Their lives are lived in the midst of human drama.”

“If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing.”

“Nobody looks perfect. We have to find peace with the way we look and get on with life.”

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.”