Los Angeles has the greatest concentration of surviving movie palaces in the United States, yet most residents have never been inside one of them.

I had the great good fortune to interview Peggy Lee. Her memories of working with Walt Disney and his team were warm and upbeat.

A Christmas Carol is such a fool-proof story you can't louse it up.

I teach at USC. I have a big class of 360 kids, only about a fifth of whom are film majors. I don't just show the Hollywood blockbusters. I show independent films, foreign films, documentaries.

I think the people who are making Christmas-themed movies today feel that people are more cynical about Christmas. There's more of an edge.

Movie theaters still exist in spite of all of the alternatives that are available, video and video-on-demand and DVD and streaming video and all of these things.

I'm a lifelong Disney nut.

I think people in Hollywood are afraid of sentiment because they think audiences will reject it.

Shakespeare wrote great plays that we're still watching all these years later. Charlie Chaplin made great comedies and they are still as funny today as they ever were.

Dumbo... makes me cry. Every single time and in the exact same spot. I just have a special affection for Dumbo.

The last person to stand still and repeat himself was Walt Disney. He refused to repeat himself. So to think that he'd be making the same kind of film in the year 2001 that he made in 1941 is absurd.

Audiences deserve better.

Everyone is looking for the sure thing. They are looking to hedge their bet. They think the way to do that is to go with a proven quantity, a remake of something you have already seen. That is their mindset.

When Tim Allen made The Santa Clause, I thought that was a delightful film. It took a modern sensibility but layered onto it a kind of sentiment.

Polar Express is not an attempt to do animation. It is a technology-based film.

Quality survives.

While it was occasionally done here or there, nobody else had a figurehead like Walt doing it. Jack Warner wasn't on TV. Walt was the boss, but he had a real public profile and he used it to his advantage. And he became a household face.

Hollywood executives believe that money is both the be-all and end-all to the moviemaking process.

NBC anchor Brian Williams is a standup comic in disguise.

Television is what made It's a Wonderful Life the classic it is today.

Beauty and the Beast became the first animated feature ever nominated for best picture.

If I were less than honest as a critic, I think people would spot that right away, and it would destroy my credibility.

Timing in life is everything.

Los Angeles has the greatest concentration of surviving movie palaces in the United States, yet most residents have never been inside one of them.

Television is what made Its a Wonderful Life the classic it is today.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

More than 65,000 horses were slaughtered in the United States in 2004, a 50 percent increase since 2002.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

The United States is our most important ally. They helped us many times. Without the United States, the unification or German democratisation after the Nazi period would have been much more complicated, or almost impossible.

What the F.D.I.C. does is to put the full faith and credit of the United States government behind every savings account in the nation, up to a limit that has changed over the years and stands now at $100,000.

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon.

The United States cannot feed every person, lift every person out of poverty, cure every disease, or stop every conflict. But our power and status have conferred upon us a tremendous responsibility to humanity.

Now, the entire world community recognizes Georgia. We are members of the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Everything is being prepared so that we will soon enter the European Union.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I have to say that it's very few countries that are willing to look back at its past and apologize for its act, or make amends for its act, as the United States had one.

But there are 90 million gun owners in the United States. Only 3.5 million want the insurance and magazines and the various things you get for joining the NRA.

They're not shooting me for deserting the United Stated Army - thousands of guys have done that. They're shooting me for bread I stole when I was 12 years old.

China's idea of fair trade is government subsidies of its textile and apparel exports to the United States, currency manipulation, and forgiveness of loans by its government banks.

One of the things about leadership is that you've got to show up. And if you want to be president of the United States you've got to make a case to the American people that Barack Obama needs to be dismissed from his position.

Yet there is disappointment in Washington and in the United States that Canada is not supporting us fully.

Further, Japan is the second largest donor in Iraq after the United States, with over $5 billion dollars for humanitarian, infrastructure and reconstruction projects.

In the report made on behalf of the C.G.T. we affirmed that the Peace Treaty should, in accordance with the spirit of workers' organizations, lay the first foundations of the United States of Europe.

One of the biggest development issues in the world is the education of girls. In the United States and Europe, it has been accepted, but not in Africa and the developing countries.

Because when the film was first mooted, the Beatles didn't like the idea at all. In fact they wouldn't have any part in it. And when Brian had committed them, it was part of a deal he did with United Artists, I think.

He was a very private person, but then, you know, he belonged to the whole United States. The United States thought they owned Johnny Carson.

The dedication of the United States Air Force, Special Forces, and others involved in the mission to tracking down terrorists can not be matched. We express our gratitude to these men and women who defend the freedom America represents.

I have often heard it said that the United States is isolated and is not interested in European affairs. I assure you that this is not the case.