The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

- Pauline Kael

Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do i…

- Pauline Kael

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

What is getting older if it isn't learning more ways that you're vulnerable?

- Pauline Kael

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

- Pauline Kael

It's sometimes discouraging to see all of a director's movies, because there's so much repetition. The auteurists took this to be a sign of a directo…

- Pauline Kael

in show business there's not much point in asking yourself if someone really likes you or if he just thinks you can be useful to him, because there's…

- Pauline Kael

Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

- Pauline Kael

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 to see them; we drop in …

- Pauline Kael