Despite some standout events, 2012 was demoralizing. The Met felt adrift, and New York City Opera couldn't claw its way back to artistic health.

The movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype--a metaphor for itself.

I'm more encouraged by the saplings: new music groups, tiny new venues, entrepreneurial musician-composers who aren't waiting to be discovered but are instead building their own Establishment.

A critic often has to play the role of coroner, dissecting a work to find out why it died (or never lived).

Let me tell you, if your marriage is in trouble, skip the therapist and find a psycho. Nothing brings people together faster.

The English have a wellspring of comedy that will never be exhausted: the combination of bestial urges and excellent manners.

Russell Crowe is normally an actor who disappears so far into his characters you'd swear his DNA has been altered.

It's easy to say "This year in art sucked." After all, about 85 percent of all shows of contemporary art are bad. But 85 percent of all art made in the Renaissance was bad.

Some reviewed 'The Master' on their knees, and while I respected its distinctive discordancy - can a movie be at once feverish and glacial? - I was unmoved.

The movie's only serious criticism is reserved for Baker's television network, which doesn't think Americans care about Afghanistan - kind of hypocritical given this film's lack of substance.

I have a female colleague who gets annoyed that Tina Fey seems to go out of her way in her movies to deride her looks, as if she weren't such an attractive woman.

Finding meaning for life is simply coming into significance because you have been able to accomplish and fulfill your purpose.

Learn to say “please” and “thank you” in multiple languages.

I am living breathing freedom

You won't be benefited unless & until you give a chance.

I get accused all the time of having a bigmouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do.

I'd like to think there is a Heaven, and it starts from the happiest day in your life.

Do you love me for me?... I don't even love me for me.

Of course I have bad hair days; I’m human.

The fate of a child is in the hands of his parents.

Sadly, I really want to be Batman ... and I just never will be.