Quotessence
Home / Authors / Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert Quotes

Film critic

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleFilmThinkingIfsKnowsWayWorldHumansShouldFirstsLooksLongMaySeemsTwoIdeasMadeNeedsStarsTrying

Famous Roger Ebert Quotes

“The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?”

PeopleIdeasStatesAbleAbilityAcceptingCrimeNotionPunishmentHolocaustClueHalfwayCapital PunishmentHalfway There
Book:Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews--1967-2007
Create image

“It considers not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our ideas of others so that a completely phony, non-human replica of a dead wife can inspire the same feelings that the wife herself once did. That is a peculiarity of humans: We feel the same emotions for our ideas as we do for the real world, which is why we can cry while reading a book, or fall in love with movie stars. Our idea of humanity bewitches us, while humanity itself stays safely sealed away into its billions of separate containers, or "people.”

PeopleWorldFeelsHumansBookIdeasRealFeelingsHumanityFallReadingStarsEmotionWifeCryInspireFalling In LoveBillionsRelateReal WorldMovie StarPhonyContainersReplica
Book:Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2005
Create image

“Political correctness is the fascism of the 90's, it is this rigid feeling that you have to keep your ideas and your way of looking at things within very narrow boundaries or else you'll offend someone. Certainly one of the purposes of journalism is to challenge just that way of thinking, and certainly one of the purposes of criticism is to break boundaries, that's also one of the purposes of art.”

ThinkingWayArtIdeasFeelingsPoliticalPurposeChallengesBreakCriticismBoundariesJournalismFascismWay Of ThinkingPolitical CorrectnessCorrectnessPurpose Of Art
Author:Roger Ebert
Create image

“I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people. We can now have action movies with two stars where one might be African American and one might be Asian American. One of them doesn't have to be white, and the other one doesn't have to be the ethnic sidekick. We're way over that. And I think it's happening in society, too.”

PeopleThinkingWayTwoIdeasMightActionStarsWhiteHappeningsAfrican AmericanAsianAction MovieAsian AmericanSidekicks
Author:Roger Ebert
Create image

“Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson star. I neglected to mention that, maybe because I was trying to place them in this review's version of the Witness Protection Program. If I were taken off the movie beat and assigned to cover the interior design of bowling alleys, I would have some idea of how they must have felt as they made this film.”

IfsTryingMadeIdeasFilmStarsFeltTakenDesignBeatsProgramProtectionVersionsWitnessReviewsInteriorsNeglectedKateInterior DesignAlleysMatthewBowlingBowling Alleys
Book:Your Movie Sucks
Create image

“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.”

IfsShouldChildrenIdeasDifferentSchoolGrowsParentRaceAcceptingClassTaughtLuckyDiversityRacismPrimitiveTribesEmphasisHostilityNationalityIsmsTribalismDifferent Nationalities
Author:Roger Ebert
Create image

“The idea that a book can advise a woman how to capture a man is touchingly naive. Books advising men how to capture a woman are far less common, perhaps because few men are willing to admit to such a difficulty. For both sexes, I recommend a good novel, offering scenarios you might learn from, if only because they reflect a lot of doubt.”

IfsMenBookIdeasMightSexCommonNovelDoubtWillingDifficultyCaptureOfferingNaiveAdviseScenarios
Book:Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition
Create image

“Wes Anderson's mind must be an exciting place for a story idea to be born. It immediately becomes more than a series of events and is transformed into a world with its own rules, in which everything is driven by emotions and desires as convincing as they are magical.”

WorldMindIdeasStoriesDesireBornEmotionEventsExcitingSeriesDrivenTransformedConvincing
Book:Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition
Create image