Quotes About Critics

I read reviews of critics I respect and feel I can learn something from. Right now there are a lot of bottom-feeder critics who just have access to a computer and don't necessarily have an academic or cinema background that I can detect, so I tend to ignore that and stay with the same top-tier critics that I've come to respect. I like reading a good review - it doesn't have to be favorable, but a well-thought-out one - because I very much appreciate the relationship of directors and critics.

Doing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information.

I relied mainly on other artists, who I think are smarter than critics, any critics or curators or anybody like that. They really know.

Well, I think critics are very useful. But I think that they, in a way, betray their position when they stop people looking for themselves. Judgment is very easy, but I think, on the whole, professional critics maybe see too much, and compare too much, and forget the joy of actually looking and contemplating for its own sake.

Sometimes the critics will like a film, and the public doesn't come. Sometimes the critics won't like the film, and the public will come. It's completely spontaneous. It's a hazard.

We triggered a discussion in society about the connection between church and state as well as our justice system. Putin is the leader, the icon and the guarantor of an authoritarian system that crushes Kremlin critics along with the help of the secret police and ever changing methods and laws.

Ron Paul warned everyone that the Patriot Act could be used against innocent American citizens. His critics said he was siding with terrorists. Now, either A. Ron Paul was right. Or B. All Verizon users are terrorists.

What shall I say about poetry? What shall I say about those clouds, or about the sky? Look; look at them; look at it! And nothing more. Don't you understand anything about poetry? Leave that to the critics and the professors. For neither you, nor I, nor any poet knows what poetry is.

Most men I know adore women, and I am including gay men. I think studies on jury selection show that the biggest critics of women - people less likely to trust their character or judgment - are women.

I don't want to be a part of the demographics. I want to be an individual. I wear each of my films as a badge of pride. That's why I cherish all my bad reviews. If the critics start liking my movies, then I'm in deep trouble.

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

Critics should stick to their convictions.

Does it take a blanket presupposition for a historian to discount some miracle stories as legendary? No, because, as even Bultmann recognized, there is no problem accepting reports even of extraordinary things that we can still verify as occurring today, like faith healings and exorcisms. However you may wish to account for them, you can go to certain meetings and see scenes somewhat resembling those in the gospels. So it is by no means a matter of rejecting all miracle stories on principle. Biblical critics are not like the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

Audiences and, to a large extent, critics who want less from theater than it is possible for it to give. If everybody's encouraged to want less, you'll end up with less.

As I look back, I understand what [the record company] was getting at. They were trying to market a record and make it as commercially acceptable as possible. It hurt me and my credibility with critics.

Critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.

The critics suppose that it is easy to write a play. They aren't aware that writing a good play is difficult and writing a bad one is twice as hard.

The critics don't interest me because they're concerned with what's past and done, while I'm concerned with what comes next.

I don't like critics; I really don't like them. I think most of them are ignorant and don't have a clue!

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.

All things in my novels are real for me. Some western critics said that Garcia Marquez's novels are magic realism. However, I believe that Marquez must have experienced everything in his novels.

America is a nation of believers, dreamers and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics, and cynics.

I knew that because of who I am, and the situation I'm in, that I'd attract more critics than your average person, and that was a little intimidating, but I wanted to get out there and pay my dues.

Well, it's so cheesy to say but you can't find a comedy director who makes movies for critics. When a movie does $580 million worldwide, I'm not saying that proves anything except people were enjoying the experience.

I have always noticed that when people consider others eccentric, it is because they are reveling in some form of enjoyment that their critics can neither compass nor share.

Criticism didn't really stop us and it shouldn't ever stop anyone, because critics are only the people who can't get a record deal themselves.

We all have known good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes; Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good kings, who disemboweled for a tax; Good Popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; Good Christians, who sat still in easy-chairs; And damned the general world for standing up. Now, may the good God pardon all good men!

I don't write for publishers, certainly not for critics, and not for readers, But I am delighted that so many people have found my books enjoyable and want to continue to read them.

I never know who's influencing me at any time. I mean, I can take a play by Brecht and adapt it, I'm consciously adapting that play, or, as I've done with the Greek classics, Euripides and Oedipus, and I'm consciously adapting that play. Whether it influences me or not, I think it's the critics, the analysts who have to decide that. Me, I don't feel that I'm under the influence of any such sources.

Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, but have rather too high, or, if that is impossible, let us say too pronounced, an opinion of the abilities of their literary friends.

Every one of my opponents, every one of my critics, will tell you that I am a generalist spread far too thin in an age when this is not done anymore, when responsible knowledge is specialized knowledge.

Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.

Most progressive critics don't want to destroy the power of the Fed to regulate the macroeconomy and finance. They want to regain control over it so that it better serves the interests of the whole population.

This is a landmark work in the history of African American studies and American intellectual history. Writing with verve, Jackson brings to life a large cast of characters and traces an ongoing conversation among the writers and critics of this period. This book is likely to become a model for a new generation of scholars, both for the breadth of its engagement and the depth of its archival research.

I don't make music to prove all the critics wrong. I do it to prove all my fans right.

We're not trying to entertain the critics ... I'll take my chances with the public.

When I did the album Electric Circus, not only was it not commercially received. But even the critics and hip-hop community was like "What is this?" At that moment, I could've been written off. But I had to believe because I really love what I do. I'm passionate about it. If 12 million recognize it, that's beautiful. If 12,000 do, that's beautiful. But I'm always going to put my heart and soul in it and I'm going to shoot for the stars and go for the highest levels of recognition and creativity. I definitely doubted myself at the time. But it always come back to believing what I do.

I learned that lesson a long time ago. When you write popular fiction, you're going to get bashed by critics.

Critics of Donald Trump take him literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

Critics of art are like eunuchs in harem. They see how it's done when the men come to see the women, but they can't do it themselves.

To me, a critic is someone who gets paid for their opinion, and they're entitled to that opinion but I don't really put a lot of stock into their opinion. I'm going to cut the kind of records and the kind of songs that I like, and the kind of things that I enjoy doing. If critics dig it, that's fine, if they don't, that's fine.

Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake. Some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing. The truth is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart.

Some critics of racing witlessly claim that spectators only attend to see someone die. This is utter and complete nonsense. I have been at numerous races where death is present. When a driver dies, the crowd symbolically dies, too. They come to see action at the brink: ultimate risk taking and the display of skill and bravery embodied in the sport's immortals like Nuvolari, Foyt, and thousands of others who operate at the ragged edge.

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.

Critics build nothing.

I, along with the critics, have never taken myself very seriously.

Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase 'Auld Lang Syne' exceedingly expressive? I shall give you the verses on the other sheet. The words of 'Auld Lang Syne' are good, but the music is an old air, the rudiments of the modern tune of that name. ... Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. ... Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure thrill the deepest notes of woe. ... Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Liberals cling to the idea that critics of welfare are motivated by greed or callous disregard for the less fortunate. In fact, during the twenty-five years that followed Lyndon Johnson's declaration of war on poverty, U.S. tax payers spent $3 trillion providing every conceivable support for the poor, the elderly, and the infirm. Private foundations spent scores of billions more, and private and religious charities even more. Nevertheless, as Ronald Raegan later quipped, 'in the war on poverty, poverty won.'