“Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted. And, of course, my idea of entertaining might not be yours. I'm in complete agreement with all those people who say, regarding movies, "I just want to be entertained." This populist position is much derided by my academic colleagues as simpleminded and unsophisticated, evidence of questionable analytical and critical acuity. But I agree with the premise, and I too just want to be entertained. That I am almost never entertained by what entertains other people who just want to be entertained doesn't make us philosophically incompatible. It just means we shouldn't go to movies together.”
Prologue.
Straight Man (1997)
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Richard Russo 19
American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter 1949Related quotes

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“I’m a movie star. Can I talk to my entertainment lawyer?”
Sarcastic remark to a police officer after failing a Breathalyzer test (28 August 2001), a comment The Smoking Gun named "The Most Entertaining Celebrity Arrest Report" of 2001; of this incident she later said:
Listen, I’m not for everyone. Maybe those officers didn’t understand that I was kidding. … Maybe a lot of those people who wrote up those police reports thought I was being serious. They probably don’t have my same sense of humor. It’s not like they have a Petri dish of highbrow comedy over at the precinct.
As quoted in "Spoonful of Sugar : Natasha Lyonne’s Sweet Comeback" by Shira Levine, in Heeb Magazine (20 January 2009) http://kittyradio.com/soapbox/gossip/46450-natasha-lyonne-interview-heeb-magazine.html

From interview with Subhash K. Jha

90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Context: I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer — one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

“Entertainment is all right, but entertainment with an idea behind it is much more important.”
On exposing antisemitism in Gentleman's Agreement. Gregory Peck: A Charmed Life by Lynn Haney (2003). page 148. ISBN 0786714735.

As quoted in USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-12-tyson-retire-talk_x.htm (2005).
Reported in The New Yorker as: “At one point, I thought life was about acquiring things. Life is totally about losing everything.” http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/27/050627ta_talk_remnick
On himself

Interview in Magische Welt, November 2007; cited by James Randi, "Geller Reversal", SWIFT, 18 January 2008 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/149-swift-january-18-2008.html

On French people
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)