Quotes by Pauline Kael

About Pauline Kael:

Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The problem with a popular art form is that those who want something more are in a hopeless minority compared with the millions who are always seeing it for the first time, or for the reassurance and gratification of seeing the conventions fulfilled ...

Pauline Kael

I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes ...

Pauline Kael

Trash has given us an appetite for art.

Pauline Kael

Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.

Pauline Kael

It seems likely that many of the young who don't wait for others to call them artists, but simply announce that they are, don't have the patience to make art.

Pauline Kael

An artist must either give up art or develop.

Pauline Kael

Really, it's not people who don't understand us who drive us nuts—it's when those who shouldn't, .

Pauline Kael

...When the bespangled Miss Charisse wraps her phenomenal legs around [Fred] Astaire, she can be forgiven everything—even the fact that she reads her lines as if she learned them phonetically.

Pauline Kael

The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes.

Pauline Kael

This movie is a toupee made up to look like honest baldness.

Pauline Kael

A book might be written on the injustice of the just.

Pauline Kael

The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Pauline Kael

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Pauline Kael

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.

Pauline Kael

A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is.

Pauline Kael

Kevin Costner has feathers in his hair and feathers in his head. The Indians should have called him 'Plays with Camera.'

Pauline Kael

The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

Pauline Kael

Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.

Pauline Kael

Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.

Pauline Kael

Author Bio

  • NamePauline Kael
  • DescriptionAmerican film critic
  • BornJune 19, 1919
  • DiedSeptember 3, 2001
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionFilm Critic; Writer
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; National Book Award; George Polk Award