Roger Ebert Quotes

If someone criticizes me, I strike back.

And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.

There was one reviewer from the 'New York Times,' I forget his name, who said I was 'death warmed over.' I wrote him back that I knew more about death than he did. The 'Times' fired him, put him in the cooking department!

I don't have a problem with Werner Herzog.

According to the New York Daily News, Geraldo said he is now carrying a gun, and he will personally shoot Osama bin Laden if he finds him. If Osama also has a gun, this could work out okay.

Diss me and you'll never hear a reply for it

If a man, notoriously and designedly, insults and affronts you, knock him down; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behaviour, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest.

I realized that anyone who dared to hurt me would suffer his full wrath, and Walt wasn’t going to hold him back.

Unfortunately most criticism is by poseurs. They use their comments about someone else's work as a platform on which to strike poses. What they're really saying is: "Look at me! Look at me!"

It is when people are told their own thoughts that they think they are being insulted.

When I've gotten criticism, it's that it's too long, too soft, didn't hit the government hard enough. Then when I do hit the government, they go, What's he doing hitting the government?

Whenever thy hand can reach it, tear out the foe's brain, for such an opportunity washes anger from the mind.

If someone's not attacking you that means you're not doing your job effectively.

Except under rare circumstances, I don't write responses to criticism.

What is revenge but courage to call in our honor's debts, and wisdom to convert others' self-love into our own protection?

What if someone picks on me?" I asked Then I'll pick on them". What if someone picks my nose?" I asked. The I'll pick your nose, too" Rowdy said.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Fight back! Whenever you are offered violence, fight back! The aggressor does not fear the law, so he must be taught to fear you. Whatever the risk, and at whatever the cost, fight back!

Hey, you wanna hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does it to you.

When, however, you have an enemy, then do not requite him good for evil: for that would shame him. Instead, prove that he did some good for you. And rather be angry than put to shame! And when you are cursed, I do not like it that you want to bless. Rather curse a little also! And if you are done a great injustice, then quickly add five small ones. Hideous to behold is he who is obsessed with an injustice.

If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to prison because I will kill him.

If I'm insulted I will counterattack, or if something is unfair, I will counterattack, but I don't feel like I insult people. I don't want to do that. But if I'm attacked, I will counterattack.

Every single American can exclaim, 'Nothing justifies what they did in New York and Washington,' not even the bombs that our government has dropped on them for ten years or the embargo that has caused the deaths of so many children. That's of course true...The issue is simply an acceptance of reality and a fundamental fact of life: When governments do bad things to people, people sometimes retaliate.

We get blows and return them.

That a person cannot and consequently will not defend himself, does not yet cast disgrace upon him in our eyes ; but we despise the person who has neither the ability nor the good will for revenge whether it be a man or a woman.