Pauline Kael Quotes
Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.
Quotes to Explore
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In American films, Russians are often portrayed like cartoon villains without clear motivations.
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Frank Capra, Hollywood's Horatio Alger, lights with more cinematic know-how and zeal than any other director to convince movie audiences that American life is exactly like the 'Saturday Evening Post' covers of Norman Rockwell. 'It's A Wonderful Life,' the latest example of Capracorn, shows his art at a hysterical pitch.
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Man has evolved a mutual relationship with nature on earth, but his power to change its surface has grown so tremendously that this may become a curse instead of a blessing.
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A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
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Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
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If the world is an objective reality that exists independently of us, then humans themselves, even in their own eyes, are nothing more than objects, and their life stories merely a series of disconnected historical accidents, which they may wonder at, but which they themselves have nothing to do with.
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I had three attorneys dedicated solely to find the statistic of the number of missing Native American women on reservations. Any reservation, not just 'Wind River.' They don't exist. The federal government, which is responsible for the reservations, don't keep those stats.
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If you think about racing too much you may just lose it a little bit.
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Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin, but he's standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me.
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By the '40s, Sam Goldwyn is a very serious man. By the '50s, he's the dean of American producers. To the end, he was Hollywood's gray eminence.
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May the perfect grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help.
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I write for children because I am interested in fantasy and the possibilities for experience of all kinds before the time of compromise. I believe that children are far more perceptive and wise than American books give them credit for being.
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The American world had - seemingly, at least - become a Jeffersonian world by the election of 1800, which placed Thomas Jefferson in the presidency. Jefferson had been Hamilton's rival in the new government's early years, and Hamilton has figured in the public memory almost as much for that rivalry as for his positive achievements.
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Some of the best writing I've done, whether I'm shooting a story or thinking of a script, I write it in my head as I'm running. Running literally jogs my brain.
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In the aftermath of September 11, it has been made clear to us that our foreign policy can no longer afford to narrowly focus on short-term benefits. For our nation's long-term security, we must be active in promoting American values abroad through our foreign policy.
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Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.
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The American dream belongs to all of us.
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A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.
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To some people, I may seem calm. But if you could peer beneath the surface, you would see that I'm like a duck--paddling, paddling, paddling.
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Politicians are, in general, receptive to those who make the most noise.
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Though German art can never be Bavarian, but simply German, yet Munich is the capital of this German Art; here, under shelter of a Prince who kindles my enthusiasm, to feel myself a native and member of the people was, to me, the homeless wanderer, a deep, a genuine need.
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For all founders, going public is a momentous milestone that has to be experienced to be fully understood. It is the culmination of years of hard work and personal sacrifice.
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When two friends part they should lock up each other's secrets and exchange keys. The truly noble mind has no resentments.
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Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened. It may seem even fresher.
