Siskel Ebert Quotes

Fellini was more in love with breasts than Russ Meyer, more wracked with guilt than Ingmar Bergman, more of a flamboyant showman than Busby Berkeley ... Amarcord seems almost to flow from the camera, as anecdotes will flow from one who has told them often and knows they work. This was the last of his films made for no better reason than Fellini wanted to make it. ~ Roger Ebert

I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me. ~ Roger Ebert

It is strange how the romances of the teenage years retain a poignancy all through life - how a girl who turns you down when you're 16 retains an aura in your memory even long after you, and she, have ceased to be who you were then. I attended my high school reunion a couple of weeks ago and discovered, in the souvenir booklet assembled by the reunion committee, that one of the girls in my class had a crush on me all those years ago. I would have given a great deal to have had that information at the time. ~ Roger Ebert

The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before. Don't wait for her. Start alone. ~ Roger Ebert

Many thrillers follow such reliable formulas that you can look at what's happening and guess how much longer a film has to run. ~ Roger Ebert

In LA I was watching At the Movies with Ebert and Roper, it was, nice to see them differentiate between the subject matter and the art form of making the film, and they both gave it thumbs up, and I was kind of pleased at their honesty as far as reviewers go. ~ Michael Berryman

It's the worst kind of bad film: the kind that gets you all worked up and then lets you down, instead of just being lousy from the first shot. ~ Roger Ebert

To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets. ~ Roger Ebert

Aren't you getting tired of people hating one another? What do they think they get out of it? ~ Roger Ebert

A lot of first novels are written long before they're actually put down on paper. ~ Roger Ebert

A man goes to the movies. The critic must admit that he is this man. ~ Roger Ebert

The 1960s ended sadly, as did Bonnie and Clyde, as did Jules and Jim, as did Thelma & Louise, a film they influenced; the movement from comedy to tragedy was all the more powerful for audiences who expected one or the other. ~ Roger Ebert

They give you a smaller glass so it feels like you're getting more, ~ Roger Ebert

I have entered the New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest almost weekly virtually since it began and have never even been a finalist. I have done more writing for free for the New Yorker in the last five years than for anybody in the previous 40 years. It's not that I think my cartoon captions are better than anyone else's, although some weeks, understandably, I do. It's that just once I want to see one of my damn captions in the magazine that publishes the best cartoons in the world."
- Roger Ebert
(By the way, in 2011 Ebert finally won, after 107 tries.) ~ Bob Mankoff

[Marlon] Brando was the only guy who could step out of that shadow at the end of that movie and be worth the wait. ~ Roger Ebert

I try to give the music more of a campfire feel as opposed to a library atmosphere. I like when you can hear people hanging out in the songs and doing a little shuffling. It creates a feeling of participation. ~ Alex Ebert

Dr. Leonard Shlain, chairman of laparoscopic surgery at California Pacific Medical Center, said they took some four and five year-olds and gave them video games and asked them to figure out how to play them without instructions. Then they watched their brain activity with real-time monitors. At first, when they were figuring out the games, he said, the whole brain lit up. But by the time they knew how to play the games, the brain went dark, except for one little point. ~ Roger Ebert

Immortals is without doubt the best-looking awful movie you will ever see. Eiko Ishioka's costume designs alone deserve an Oscar nomination. "They weren't at all historically accurate," grumbled a woman in the elevator after the sneak preview, as if lots of documentation exists about the wardrobes of the gods. She added: "I guess that's what we deserve for using free tickets we got at a Blackhawks game. ~ Roger Ebert

What you see is so much less than what you get. ~ Roger Ebert

Politics, poverty, riches, etc - these are but backdrops for the grand cinema, the opera: the glory of your life. Sure, change the backdrops, make them better, but it is this inside-ness that matters most. Nothing else, at the last breath, matters, but your very own poetry. The glory of living. ~ Alex Ebert

Kindness' covers all of my political beliefs. ~ Roger Ebert

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. ~ Roger Ebert

We piled into the back of his big red Sun-Times truck: Robertson, McHugh, a bagpipe player, assorted other regulars, and Good Sydney Harris. Good Sydney Harris was a Spanish Civil War veteran, not to be confused with the Bad Sydney Harris, the Daily News columnist. Good Sydney had fallen into conversation with a dominatrix named Jake, who joined us. ~ Roger Ebert

Now I see that all relationships are virtual, even those that take place in person. Whether we use our bodies or a keyboard, it all comes down to two minds crying out from their solitude. ~ Roger Ebert

One of the weapons Marvel used in its climb to comic-book dominance was a willingness to invent new characters at a dizzying speed. There are so many Marvel universes, indeed, that some superheroes do not even exist in one another's worlds, preventing gridlock. ~ Roger Ebert

I just assume I'm right. Partially out of conviction and partially as a pose. ~ Roger Ebert

Drama holds a mirror up to life, but needn't reproduce it. ~ Roger Ebert

If a movie isn't a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy. ~ Roger Ebert

Many people believe the names of In 'n Out and Steak 'n Shake perfectly describe the contrast in bedroom techniques between the coast and the heartland. ~ Roger Ebert

When we go to the movies, we identify with the characters we see. That's why we go to the movies; we have a voyeuristic experience; we have an out of the body experience. The screen is more real than our thoughts are at the moment we are looking at the film and we place ourselves in the place of the people on the screen, and when they behave nobly, it makes us feel noble, when they are sad and when they have lost love, we feel sad; we can identify with that. ~ Roger Ebert

If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough? ~ Roger Ebert

There are no guarantees. But there is also nothing to fear. We come from oblivion when we are born. We return to oblivion when we die. The astonishing thing is this period of in-between. ~ Roger Ebert

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. ~ Roger Ebert

What we have here is a rousing boy's adventure story, adapted from stories that Edgar Rice Burroughs cranked out for early pulp magazines. They lacked the visceral appeal of his Tarzan stories, which inspired an estimated 89 movies; amazingly, this is the first John Carter movie, but it is intended to foster a franchise and will probably succeed. ~ Roger Ebert

The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. ~ Roger Ebert

Entertainment is about the way things should be. Art is about the way they are. ~ Roger Ebert

Low self esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you. ~ Roger Ebert

By going to the movies, and because of other things, too, going to college, making a wide variety of friends, moving around traveling, I became a lot more open-minded than the heritage I was born into might have suggested. ~ Roger Ebert

It is all very well and good for Linda Lovelace, the star of the movie, to advocate sexual freedom; but the energy she brings to her role is less awesome than discouraging. If you have to work this hard at sexual freedom, maybe it isn't worth the effort. ~ Roger Ebert

What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away, ~ Roger Ebert

Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' is a magnificent science-fiction film, all the more intriguing because it raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers. ~ Roger Ebert

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. ~ Roger Ebert

What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods. Period. That's it. Animal protein is bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Forget the ads: Milk and eggs are bad for you. ~ Roger Ebert

So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies. ~ Roger Ebert

If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen. ~ Roger Ebert

What makes people interesting is the spirit that shines through. ~ Roger Ebert

Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you. ~ Roger Ebert

The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in "2001: A Space Odyssey,' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, "2001' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe. ~ Roger Ebert