Extended excerpt: [Address to live & television audience. Ebert is discussing the greater need for empathy. Transcript via Repeat Right.]:

“Art, is of course, many things but I believe its most important role is to give form to emotion and then to communicate it from one person to another. We will always be trapped within ourselves, but we can, however, usually understand something about how those closest to us feel – our relatives, the people we are married to, our families – we can identify with them, but what about the others? What about those born to other tribes? I believe art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.” 

Source link: “11th Hour “Roger Ebert” (4 April 2013) Colorado Public Television: http://video.cpt12.org/video/2364991008/

Extended excerpt [Essay.]:

“Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

Source link: “Go Gentle into that Good Night” (2 May 2009) Roger Ebert’s Journal: http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/go-gentle-into-that-good-night

Extended excerpt [Excerpt from first paragraph of Ebert’s review of the movie The Best of Youth – screenplay by Sandro Petraglia & Stefano Rulli.]:

“Every review of The Best of Youth begins with the information that it is six hours long. No movie is too long, just as no bad movie is short enough. I dropped outside of time and was carried along by the narrative flow; when the film was over, I had no particular desire to leave the theater, and would happily have stayed another three hours.”

Source link: “The Best of Youth” (31 March 2005) online via RogerEbert.com: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-best-of-youth-2005

Extended excerpt [Final lines of Ebert’s review of Talk Radio, a motion picture based on a play by Eric Bogosian]:

“These days, a lot of people are opposed to the newfound popularity of “trash television,” and no doubt they are right and the hosts of these shows are shameless controversy-mongers. But at least they are not intimidated. Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?” (p. D-3, column 6)

Source link:“Talk Radio broadcasts a dark, intense message” (19 January 1989) The Indianapolis News; online via Newspapers.com [subscription service]: https://www.newspapers.com/image/312939063/?terms=%22Of%2Bwhat%2Buse%2Bis%2Bfreedom%2Bof%2Bspeech%2Bto%2Bthose%2Bwho%2Bfear%2Bto%2Boffend%3F%22