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

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

Roger Ebert

crime unhappy

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.

Roger Ebert

gambling movie film

I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.

Roger Ebert

wisdom civilization believe

To know me is to love me. This cliche is popular for a reason, because most of us, I imagine, believe deep in our hearts that if anyone truly got to know us, they'd truly get to love us - or at least know why we're the way we are. The problem in life, maybe the central problem, is that so few people ever seem to have sufficient curiosity to do the job on us that we know we deserve.

Roger Ebert

jobs life believe

It's hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie.

Roger Ebert

kind found fun

We laugh, that we may not cry.

Roger Ebert

cry may laughing

Sometimes you only need to have a few words with a person to know you would like to have many more.

Roger Ebert

few-words relationship needs

What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods. Period. That's it. Animal protein is bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Forget the ads: Milk and eggs are bad for you.

Roger Ebert

vegetarian-diet eggs animal

The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in “2001: A Space Odyssey,'' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, “2001'' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.

Roger Ebert

space artist essence

Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.

Roger Ebert

children ideas school

And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up.

Roger Ebert

trying people thinking

We all are born with a certain package. We are who we are: where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We're kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.

Roger Ebert

journey dream civilization

Why is it that English, drama and music teachers are most often recalled as our mentors and inspirations? Maybe because artists are rarely members of the popular crowd.

Roger Ebert

inspiration teacher drama

The moment a man stops dreaming is the moment he petrifies inside.

Roger Ebert

moments dream men

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

delight philosophical care

Artists are rarely members of the popular crowd.

Roger Ebert

members crowds artist

Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.

Roger Ebert

empathy problem

No movie has ever been able to provide a catharsis for the Holocaust, and I suspect none will ever be able to provide one for 9/11. Such subjects overwhelm art.

Roger Ebert

catharsis holocaust art

We feel the same emotions for our ideas as we do for the real world, which is why we can cry while reading a book, or fall in love with movie stars.

Roger Ebert

falling-in-love stars real

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

digital-revolution technology voice