Vincent Canby

“The first-rate actor is not a selfless empty vessel who is filled with the character he is playing. He is a complicated, willful, self-centered, intelligent, emotional animal.”

“A bad movie is a personal experience.”

“A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just with the movie but with yourself.”

“Having a favorite director is like having a favorite screw-driver.”

“The only thing that I have done that is not mitigated by luck, diminished by good fortune, is that I persisted, and other people gave up.”

“In America, the least amusing people are its professional comedians.”

“More and more, as I think about history, I am convinced that everything is interesting if you look at it long enough.”

“It's one of the functions of the theater to shock and instruct, sometimes in that order.”

“An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark - that is critical genius.”

“For a film critic, a bad film is a professional hazard.”