Allowing for exceptions, there is still one basic difference between the traditional arts and the mass-media arts: in the traditional arts, the artist grows; in a mass medium, the artist decays profitably. — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
McLuhanism and the media have broken the back of the book business; they've freed people from the shame of not reading. They've rationalized becoming stupid and watching television. — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes. — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
Movies have been doing so much of the same thing - in slightly different ways - for so long that few of the possibilities… — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising. — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a… — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
The movies have been so rank the last couple of years that when I see people lining up to buy tickets I sometimes think… — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
If you use Hollywood as the test tissue for mankind, what could the prognosis be? — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to… — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism. — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
Watching old movies is like spending an evening with those people next door. They bore us, and we wouldn't go out of our way… — Pauline Kael Copy Share Image
