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Top 20 David Denby Quotes (2025 Update)

David Denby Quote: “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.”

1. “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.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “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.”

2. “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.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “I was shocked. A dying word, “shocked.” Few people have been able to use it well since Claude Rains so famously said, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” as he pocketed his winnings in Casablanca. But it’s the only word for excitement and alarm of this intensity.”

3. “I was shocked. A dying word, “shocked.” Few people have been able to use it well since Claude Rains so famously said, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” as he pocketed his winnings in Casablanca. But it’s the only word for excitement and alarm of this intensity.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.”

4. “A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “The trouble with today’s snarky pipsqueaks who break off a sentence or two, or who write a couple of mean paragraphs, is that they don’t go far enough; they don’t have a coherent view of life. Spinning around in the media from moment to moment, they don’t stand for anything, push for anything; they’re mere opportunists without dedication, and they don’t win any victories.”

5. “The trouble with today’s snarky pipsqueaks who break off a sentence or two, or who write a couple of mean paragraphs, is that they don’t go far enough; they don’t have a coherent view of life. Spinning around in the media from moment to moment, they don’t stand for anything, push for anything; they’re mere opportunists without dedication, and they don’t win any victories.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “You might learn as much about how to write by reading Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Wallace Stevens, Raymond Chandler, Saul Bellow, Paul Muldoon or a hundred other good novelists or poets than by seeing another round of John Ford revivals.”

6. “You might learn as much about how to write by reading Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Wallace Stevens, Raymond Chandler, Saul Bellow, Paul Muldoon or a hundred other good novelists or poets than by seeing another round of John Ford revivals.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “For many kids, a good teacher may be the most palpable form of honor they will ever experience.”

7. “For many kids, a good teacher may be the most palpable form of honor they will ever experience.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “If you don’t read books, and if you don’t get consumed by the physical and moral life of men and women in fiction and history, too many facets of yourself may never come into being.”

8. “If you don’t read books, and if you don’t get consumed by the physical and moral life of men and women in fiction and history, too many facets of yourself may never come into being.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Snark often functions as an enforcer of mediocrity and conformity. In its cozy knowingness, snark flatters you by assuming that you get the contemptuous joke. You’ve been admitted, or readmitted, to a club, though it may be the club of the second-rate.”

9. “Snark often functions as an enforcer of mediocrity and conformity. In its cozy knowingness, snark flatters you by assuming that you get the contemptuous joke. You’ve been admitted, or readmitted, to a club, though it may be the club of the second-rate.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Never throw fruit at someone who understands the theatrics of the situation better than you do.”

10. “Never throw fruit at someone who understands the theatrics of the situation better than you do.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “But after children leave their parents’ arms, school is still the necessary place for knowledge and soul to spring into life and good teachers are still the instigators of that miracle.”

11. “But after children leave their parents’ arms, school is still the necessary place for knowledge and soul to spring into life and good teachers are still the instigators of that miracle.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Trivial details have been summoned, in part, to make a satirical point about upper-middle-class marriage-that the whole thing can slip away between the white wine and the arugula salad.”

12. “Trivial details have been summoned, in part, to make a satirical point about upper-middle-class marriage-that the whole thing can slip away between the white wine and the arugula salad.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Art talk is punk. Let the movie do your speaking for you.”

13. “Art talk is punk. Let the movie do your speaking for you.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “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?”

14. “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?”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Corporate irony not only ridicules the thing it is selling but the very act of selling it. In the process it disarms critics by making anyone who goes against the flow of commerce seem clueless.”

15. “Corporate irony not only ridicules the thing it is selling but the very act of selling it. In the process it disarms critics by making anyone who goes against the flow of commerce seem clueless.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Snark is what people on the inside call any attempt at protest from people on the outside. I hate it on principle, as do all Columbia professors, Catholic priests, and Mississippi Klansmen.”

16. “Snark is what people on the inside call any attempt at protest from people on the outside. I hate it on principle, as do all Columbia professors, Catholic priests, and Mississippi Klansmen.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “Entertaining the reader is a good function.”

17. “Entertaining the reader is a good function.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “The director, Antoine Fuqua, relies on small details, which anchor the vigilante-as-saint myth in at least a minimal degree of reality.”

18. “The director, Antoine Fuqua, relies on small details, which anchor the vigilante-as-saint myth in at least a minimal degree of reality.”

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “The problem of criticism is not judgment but evocation – conveying the particular emotional and visual feel that the movie has.”

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

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “The action comes at us through a buzz of nattering remarks.”

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

— David Denby

David Denby Quote: “The greatest all-around American film actor is James Stewart.”

21. “The greatest all-around American film actor is James Stewart.”

— David Denby

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