Famous quotes containing the words national, society, film and/or critics:
“The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I am ill, but your being by me
Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
To one not sociable. I am not very sick,
Since I can reason of it.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)