Bernard Holland interviews himself

BERNARD HOLLAND: To which philosopher do you always return?

BH: Groucho Marx who once said, "Who says I have to make sense?"

BERNARD HOLLAND: Any other big thoughts these days?

BH: I prefer little ones. Big thoughts lack ballast. I read a book on criticism by a prominent film critic a while back — page after page of wispy, lovely words. I'm sure every one of them had deep meaning for their writer but to me they were like unmoored balloons, filled with gas, floating off God knows where. Words like "truth" or "beauty" are a refuge for the inarticulate. They sound seductive but deliver little. You want to say something? Tell a story. Plato knew it. So did Jesus. There is more meaning at the end of a pointed finger than every essay on truth and beauty ever written. (Even yours, Mr. Keats.) Sorry. I do go on.