20 Quotes by David Thomson

I suspect that a greater and more insidious influence [than violence in movies] may lie in what they tell us about being in love, and how to conduct ourselves while in that condition.

Why was Simpson called "OJ" except in some kind of branding or headlinese that said, "Look, this guy is sweet, wholseome, and nourishing (and 'Orenthal' is just too fancy)? You can have him for breakfast." (And "Sweetness" and "Sweet" are nicknames often given to black men.) Is "OJ" that far away from Jell-O? Wasn't that extended advertising campaign a way of saying you can trust our pudding because Bill Cosby likes it—sweet, wholesome, and pretty?

The longing for improvement and the fear of waste and worse - it is a pattern still with us, and maybe it speaks to the medium's essential marriage of light and dark, or as Mary Pickford put it in her autobiography (published in 1955), Sunshine and Shadow. Light and dark were the elements of film, and they had their chemistry in film's emulsion. They had a moral meaning, too. But not everyone appreciated that prospect, or credited how it might make your fortune.

He made the South Seas a great part of his life. Clearly this story comes out of the books he read and the things he learned about the seas during his time out there. He was also crazy about Asian women.

Jon Stewart is clearly an unusual figure. He might have said, 'If you want me, you've got to have me on my own terms'.

We have more (potential) sites than the ability to fill them.

There had never been such a display of dangerous, brutal male beauty on an American stage -- its influence can still be felt, in fashion photography and sport as well as acting.

Brando clearly was imagining himself as that person. There are several aspects of it that fit with Brando very well; that kind of loner, interested in sailing and the South Seas, drawn to Asian women and eating and drinking.

Dynamic duos are the stuff of corporate legend: Sears and Roebuck, Roy and Walt Disney, Hewlett and Packard, and the like.