Top 300 Roger Ebert Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “If your religion doesn’t respect the rights of other religions, it is lacking something.”

— Roger Ebert

52. “One difference between film noir and more straightforward crime pictures is that noir is more open to human flaws and likes to embed them in twisty plot lines.”

— Roger Ebert

53. “In literature, it’s called plagiarism. In the movies, it’s homage.”

— Roger Ebert

54. “In Hollywood, ‘under development’ means ‘all I have is the title.’”

— Roger Ebert

55. “It amazes me that filmmakers will still film, and audiences will still watch, relationships so bankrupt of human feeling that the characters could be reading dialogue written by a computer.”

— Roger Ebert

Featured in: Reading Quotes

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

— Roger Ebert

57. “Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.”

— Roger Ebert

Featured in: Reading Quotes

58. “I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic – the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn’t win.”

— Roger Ebert

59. “Improvisation is a weird word because we often think it means that you make things up out of whole cloth right there on the spot, and that’s rarely the case in acting. You have to know who the character is, what the situation is and what is needed.”

— Roger Ebert

60. “Most of us do not consciously look at movies.”

— Roger Ebert

61. “If you can act as if something is true, in a sense that makes it true.”

— Roger Ebert

62. “As a child I simply did not notice whether a movie was in color or not. The movies themselves were such an overwhelming mystery that if they wanted to be in black and white, that was their business.”

— Roger Ebert

63. “Dogs remember every favor you ever do for them and store those events in a memory bank titled Why My Human Is A God.”

— Roger Ebert

64. “Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?”

— Roger Ebert

65. “It’s hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie.”

— Roger Ebert

Featured in: Fun Quotes

66. “Are vampires kinky? I didn’t know.”

— Roger Ebert

67. “Because of the rush of human knowledge, because of the digital revolution, I have a voice, and I do not need to scream.”

— Roger Ebert

68. “The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise.”

— Roger Ebert

69. “I do suspect my star ratings average too high. But, of course, star ratings are ridiculous. I’m stuck with them.”

— Roger Ebert

70. “A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that.”

— Roger Ebert

71. “The Toys of a Lifetime.”

— Roger Ebert

72. “There are two things you can’t argue in film: comedy and eroticism. If something doesn’t make you laugh, no one can tell you why it’s funny, and it’s difficult to reason someone out of an erection.”

— Roger Ebert

73. “The very fact of snow is such an amazement.”

— Roger Ebert

74. “I will one day be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.”

— Roger Ebert

75. “If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn’t.”

— Roger Ebert

76. “Nothing ever seems straightforward in Venice, least of all its romances.”

— Roger Ebert

Featured in: Romance Quotes

77. “Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.”

— Roger Ebert

78. “There’s nothing like impending death to rouse you from existential boredom.”

— Roger Ebert

79. “Show me a sexual practice that involves ice cubes and hot sauce, and I will show you a sexual practice that would be improved without them.”

— Roger Ebert

80. “Fight Club is a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy – the kind of ride where some people puke and others can’t wait to get on again.”

— Roger Ebert

81. “Praise without merit is more harmful than unearned criticism.”

— Roger Ebert

82. “I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.”

— Roger Ebert

83. “I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip.”

— Roger Ebert

84. “Catholic theology believes that God gave man free will, and you can’t give somebody free will and then send in a play from the sidelines.”

— Roger Ebert

85. “To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.”

— Roger Ebert

86. “Nobody looks perfect. We have to find peace with the way we look and get on with life.”

— Roger Ebert

87. “There is a movie called Fargo playing right now. It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see Little Indian, Big City, I will never let you read one of my reviews again.”

— Roger Ebert

88. “Rollerball is an incoherent mess, a jumble of footage in search of plot, meaning, rhythm and sense. There are bright colors and quick movement on the screen, which we can watch as a visual pattern that, in entertainment value, falls somewhere between a kaleidoscope and a lava lamp.”

— Roger Ebert

89. “Many people believe the names of In ’n Out and Steak ’n Shake perfectly describe the contrast in bedroom techniques between the coast and the heartland.”

— Roger Ebert

90. “It is all very well and good for Linda Lovelace, the star of the movie, to advocate sexual freedom; but the energy she brings to her role is less awesome than discouraging. If you have to work this hard at sexual freedom, maybe it isn’t worth the effort.”

— Roger Ebert

91. “We must try to contribute joy to the world.”

— Roger Ebert

92. “So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.”

— Roger Ebert

93. “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

94. “I like smart movies about smart people, and enjoy it when most of the facts are on the table and we can contemplate them together.”

— Roger Ebert

95. “There are often lists of the great living male movie stars. How often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He’s daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air.”

— Roger Ebert

96. “The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness, But if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension. If you just have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time you just get numb.”

— Roger Ebert

97. “Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter’s Basilica.”

— Roger Ebert

98. “The film argues to the young that the old were young once, too, and contain within them all that the young know, and more.”

— Roger Ebert

99. “I have no fear of death. We all die. I consider my remaining days to be like money in the bank. When it is all gone, I will be repossessed.”

— Roger Ebert

100. “The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.”

— Roger Ebert