“Alienation is the most common state of the knowledgeable movie audience, and though it has the peculiar rewards of low connoisseurship, a miser’s delight in small favors, we long to be surprised out of it — not to suspension of disbelief nor to a Brechtian kind of alienation, but to pleasure, something a man can call good without self-disgust.”

— Pauline Kael , book Going Steady

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

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Pauline Kael 72

American film critic 1919–2001

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“The small triumph of "The Graduate" was to have domesticated alienation and the difficulty of communication, by making what Benjamin is alienated from a middle-class comic strip and making it absurdly evident that he has nothing to communicate — which is just what makes him an acceptable hero for the large movie audience. If he said anything or had any ideas, the audience would probably hate him.”

Pauline Kael book Going Steady

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

“Without alienation, there can be no politics.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Marxism Today (January 1988)

“One thing I've always appreciated about Dave is that he can be sarcastic without being alienating and self-deprecating without being self-abusing.”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

On David Letterman — interview in Joanne Weintraub (November 21, 2000) "Mr. Midwest - Jim Gaffigan tries to hold his own", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, p. 1.

“People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the United States legally.”

Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York

Speech on immigration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL2k8jbnAs (24 June 2009), quoted in "Schumer talks tough on immigration reform issue" https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/schumer-talks-tough-on-immigration-reform-issue-1.1868825 by Tom Brune, Newsday.com (18 April 2010)

“They stared at each other, man and alien, or more correctly alien and alien—for this is what they were to each other. Alien meaning different, alien meaning unknown.”

Harry Harrison (1925–2012) American science fiction author

Source: Plague from Space (1965), Chapter 13 (p. 136)

“Hindus accept no divisions between the believer and unbeliever. Every path leads to Him (God or Reality); there can be as many paths to Him as the number of human. Indeed, the prophetic tradition is alien to Hinduism. Narrowness of the spirit, peculiar to Semitic faiths, has been alien to India.”

Girilal Jain (1924–1993) Indian journalist

Source: The Hindu Phenomenon - By Girilal Jain p 5 -135 - South Asia Books - 1998 ISBN 8174760105

“These kinds of habits, in good company, are so very nauseous and disgusting, that if we indulge ourselves in them, no one can be very fond of our acquaintance. So far from it, that even those, who are inclined to wish us well, must, by these and the like disagreeable customs, be entirely alienated from us.”

Giovanni della Casa (1503–1556) Roman Catholic archbishop

Those ill-bred people, who expect their acquaintance to love and caress them, with all their foibles, are as absurd as a poor ragged cinder-wench; who should roll about upon an heap of ashes, scrabbling and throwing dust in the face of every one that passed by; and yet flatter herself that she should allure some youth to her embraces, by these dirty endearments; which would infallibly keep him at a distance.
Source: Galateo: Or, A Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners, p. 15

“I’d send out an intergalactic invitation to other species. I guarantee they would not be like the aliens in the movies I did. I think if they can get here, they could be charming. Stephen Hawking said aliens would be coming for our resources. Well, I don’t know what planet he’s talking about, we don’t have any resources to give them! We’re plundering our own planet. Unless garbage and plastic is something they need, in which case, we could work out a good deal.”

Sigourney Weaver (1949) American actress

Stylist, "Queen of everything: Sigourney Weaver" https://www.stylist.co.uk/people/interviews-and-profiles/queen-of-everything-sigourney-weaver/173306, (2012).

“We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology https://books.google.com/books?id=T3F2XT_LxNwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:1416573593&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAvLT854_XAhVHKGMKHefOBU4Q6AEIJjAA Touchstone, (1963); Ch.1, "Formulation Regarding the Two Principles in Mental Functioning", (1911)
1910s

“If Coca-Cola accidentally created 100 million cans of faulty Coke, you know for sure the entire 100 million cans would be dropped in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, without a second thought and irrespective of what that did to the year's profits. What do we do with a crappy movie? We double its advertising budget and hope for a big opening weekend. What have we done for the audience as they walk out of the cinema? We've alienated them. We've sold audiences a piece of junk; we just took twelve dollars away from a couple and we think we've done ourselves no long-term damage.”

David Puttnam (1941) British film producer

GQ magazine, April 1987

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