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A woman who taught at Berkeley dropped in on me once and saw a book burning in the fireplace. She pointed at it in terror, and I explained that it was a crummy ghostwritten life of a movie star and that it was an act of sanitation to burn it rather than sending it out into the world which was already clogged with too many copies of it. But she said, "You shouldn’t burn books" and began to cry.

— Pauline Kael

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More quotes by Pauline Kael

If there is any test that can be applied to movies, it's that the good ones never make you feel virtuous.

Hooked (1989)

The action genre has always had a fascist potential, and it surfaces in this movie.

Is there something in druggy subjects that encourages directors to make imitation film noir? Film noir itself becomes an addiction.

Hooked (1989)

It's as if Brian de Palma were saying, "What is getting older if it isn't learning more ways that you're vulnerable?"

Movie Love (1991)

De Mille's bang-them-on-the-head-with-wild-orgies-and-imperilled-virginity style is at its ripest; the film is just about irresistible.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pauline Kael (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.