Roger Ebert Quotes

One of my superstitions is I'm not allowed to talk about them.

For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them.

I'm very superstitious... I never shout at magpies, walk under ladders or put my shoes on the table.

Not at all do I trust augurs, who enrich the ears of others, so that they can enrich their own homes with gold.

For all the popularity of spiritual advisers in South Korea, it still shocks to see the leaders of huge public companies relying on fortune-tellers. A shaman may advise a struggling executive to move a building's front entrance, tapping the widespread pungsu belief that your luck depends on the direction of your house.

I had a great grandmother who believed in so many strange superstitions. She used to tell the future from the things that catch on to the hem of your skirt when you've been sewing, and different colored threads would mean different things... Of course, all that influenced me quite a lot as a child.

Folklore provides a socially sanctioned outlet for the discussion of the forbidden and taboo.

My family was very loving but also very superstitious. My mother was always telling us, 'Don't walk under a ladder or you'll have bad luck,' or, 'If you spill salt, be sure and toss a pinch over your shoulder, or you're in trouble.'

I had my fortune told once at the Great Wall of China. A withered old lady told my fortune - but it was probably one of these things that are set up to rip off tourists. She told me a couple of vague things that came true, but she was probably just lucky. I would never do it again.

The superstition in which we were brought up never loses its power over us, even after we understand it.

The Ancient Egyptians considered it good luck to meet a swarm of Bees on the road. What they considered bad luck I couldn't say.

I think it is bad luck to put shoes on a table or walk under ladders.

My background is standard American blue collar of the itchy-footed variety. We're new-world mongrels. The women in the family read horoscopes, tea leaves, coffee bubbles, Tarot cards and palms.

My mother believed in curses, karma, good luck, bad luck, feng shui. Her amorphous set of beliefs showed me you can pick and choose the qualities of your philosophy, based on what works for you.

If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it. You know how in New York there's a lot of scaffolding? I won't walk under scaffolding or under ladders. I wear things like a baseball player wears things that are supposed to have luck.

Astrology is interesting but not very accurate. It's a science I don't trust very much.

My mother watched the skies at evening for a portent of the morrow. A cloud that went over and then turned around and came back was an especially bad sign.

I'm not, like - what's the word when you believe in a lot of magic? Superstitious.

I used to carry a rabbit's foot for luck. Then it was a monkey's paw. Now it's a camel's toe.

Superstitious." What a strange word. If you believed in Christianity or Islam, it was called "faith". But if you believed in astrology or Friday the thirteenth it was superstition! Who had the right to call other people's belief superstition?

From now on, I don't care if my tea leaves spell 'Die, Ron, Die,' I'm chucking them in the bin where they belong.

Woman is the most superstitious animal beneath the moon. When a woman has a premonition that Tuesday will be a disaster, to which a man pays no heed, he will very likely lose his fortune then. This is not meant to be an occult or mystic remark. The female body is a vessel, and the universe drops its secrets into her far more quickly than it communicates them to the male.

An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb

For this reason, if you believe proverbs, let me tell you the common one: "It is unlucky to marry in May.

Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.