ARTS / Overheard

So, this is the Year of the Woman. Well, it's been a good year for women. Demi Moore got sold to Robert Redford for dollars 1m, Uma Thurman went for dollars 40,000 to Robert De Niro and three years ago Richard Gere bought Julia Roberts for - what was it? - dollars 3,000. I'd say that was real progress.

Michelle Pfeiffer, at the Women in Film luncheon in Hollywood

So much for sisterhood. What a bitchy remark. She was really standing up for women's rights in that Catwoman costume, wasn't she?

Demi Moore's riposte

I have always made it out to be a very small film.

Jennifer Lynch on her own Boxing Helena, Guardian. Her first choice for leading lady was Madonna

If it's terrific, I say, 'Well, of course. It was based on a very good picture.' If it stinks, I say, 'Now you see how people can fuck it up?'

Billy Wilder on Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, Mirabella

I'm very uncomfortable living in any world where the Pope is 25 years younger than I am.

Billy Wilder, ibid.

It is a safe bet, in a branch of historiography where superlatives are always a provocation, to state that today is the first time that an ancient Greek trireme will row on the Tideway to the Houses of Parliament while a production of Aristophanes' Lysistrata is in performance on the South Bank.

Leader in Wednesday's Times