Quotations: Wisdom, Wit, and Movies

These quotations, most of which do not appear in any other quotation book or web site, answer questions such as: Why Buster Keaton never smiled; what Albert Camus thought was the most intimate thing about us; what Jackie Gleason said insecure people love to do; what's the only comfort from the words of Samuel Beckett; which films have the most witty dialogue of all time; what most alienates a voter from our political system; and what thrilled Vin Scully as a youngster about baseball games.

They come from those famous and those not. Some are our contemporaries and some are from ages past. They include philosophers, directors, novelists, actors, politicians, attorneys, artists, psychiatrists, musicians, scientists, and many more. What they have in common is they all wrote or said something that was wise or witty, frequently both.

Also included are many quotes dealing with movies and movie making. Some are actual dialogue lines because writers have said a lot about the human condition in films, often humorously. Other quotes deal with the film making process, because that is our era's premier art form.

It's an eclectic bunch: From the poet who knew how to tell if a work of art was any good, to the baseball umpire describing the art of taking off a mask; from a Google executive musing about how taking his kids to work might be warping them, to a famous movie director telling us what he always fears the first day on set; from the attorney identifying what is the forerunner of stupidity, to the playwright describing what was genius and "better than rum." They all contribute to defining humanity and the human dilemma we all face.