33 Quotes by David Denby

The action comes at us through a buzz of nattering remarks.

His real intention appears to be to deliver a blow to the patella of a conglomerate-controlled press corps that, until recently, has indulged the Bush administration's most extravagant smears and lies. He has completely succeeded.

was a man telling his bosses what they wanted to hear.

There wasn't much of a story. I told the publisher I've got to keep this going.

a lovely guy - charming, enthusiastic, eager and modest.

We seek knowledge only because we desire enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a person who has neither desires nor fears would take the trouble to reason. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.

Crash is hyper-articulate and often breathtakingly intelligent and always brazenly alive. I think it’s easily the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, though it is not for the fainthearted.

The problem of criticism is not judgment but evocation – conveying the particular emotional and visual feel that the movie has.

But what about high school? How do you establish reading pleasure in busy, screen-loving teenagers – and in particular, pleasure in reading serious work? Is it still possible to raise teenagers who can’t live without reading something good? Or is that idea absurd? And could the struggle to create such hunger have any effect on the character of boys and girls?