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It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.

Roger Ebert

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Roger Ebert
Age: 70 †
Born: 1942
Born: June 18
Died: 2013
Died: April 4
Film Critic
Journalist
Presenter
Reporter
Screenwriter
Writer
Urbana
Illinois
Roger Joseph Ebert
Must
Vulgar
Rise
Succeed
Genius
Quite
Possible
Funny
Certain

More quotes by Roger Ebert

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That's what fantasies are for, to help us imagine that things are better than they are.
Roger Ebert
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In Hollywood, 'under development' means 'all I have is the title.'
Roger Ebert
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It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality. That's why writing on the Internet has become a lifesaver for me. My ability to think and write have not been affected. And on the Web, my real voice finds expression.
Roger Ebert
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Only enormously talented people could have made Death to Smoochy . Those with lesser gifts would have lacked the nerve to make a film so bad, so miscalculated, so lacking any connection with any possible audience.
Roger Ebert
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While I am usually in despair when a movie abandons its plot for a third act given over entirely to action, I have no problem with the way Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ends, because it has been pointing toward this ending, hinting about it, preparing us for it, all the way through. What a glorious movie.
Roger Ebert
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I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don't, you won't be able to understand your own explanation. That is why 90% of academic film theory is bullshit. Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Roger Ebert
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Clouds do not really look like camels or sailing ships or castles in the sky. They are simply a natural process at work. So too, perhaps, are our lives.
Roger Ebert
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And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out. If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not.
Roger Ebert
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Life is made up of challenges that cannot be solved but only accepted.
Roger Ebert
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Crowds can be frightening. They have a way of impressing the low, base taste upon their members. Watching the way thousands of people in his audience could not think for themselves, could not find the courage to allow their ordinary feelings of decency and taste to prevail, I understood better how demagogues are possible.
Roger Ebert
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Since any reasonable person would choose a Mac over a PC, Apple's market share provides us with an accurate reading of the percentage of reasonable people in our society.
Roger Ebert
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A corner is important. It provides privacy and an anchor and lets you exist independently of the room.
Roger Ebert
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What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable.
Roger Ebert
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The fact is, most people are not going to be rich someday. And we've had a concerted policy of taking money away from the poor and giving it to the rich wholesale, and at the same time, we have the runaway corporations, and the greed.
Roger Ebert
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I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.
Roger Ebert
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If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.
Roger Ebert
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My newspaper job … is my identity.
Roger Ebert
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Families and their problems go on and on, and they aren't solved, they're dealt with.
Roger Ebert
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[Marlon] Brando was the only guy who could step out of that shadow at the end of that movie and be worth the wait.
Roger Ebert
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The Lucky One is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true.
Roger Ebert