Quotes About Critics

There will be this mix of people like me who write for major national newspapers and amateur critics, practitioner critics, whose primary way of distributing what they talk about is through blogs and on the web. The line between professional and amateur criticism will become increasingly blurred. The problem here is that if you want to do this for a living, you have to be able to earn a living doing it.

The closeness [of Rex Tillerson] to [Vladimir] Putin will be one of the unifying issues between the Republican critics and Democratic critics.

Most critics write critiques which are by the authors they write critiques about. That would not be so bad, but then most authorswrite works which are by the critics who write critiques about them.

Artists teach critics what to think. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.

I think the harsh reviews helped, in that I spent way more energy in the preproduction and development. From this point of view, I'm very thankful for the harsh critics. I still think the critics were unnecessarily insulting in a lot of things, but I think it helped.

There were internal critics, sharp critics, who were very opposed to [Malcolm X], and who were very - some of them were members of Elijah Mohammad's family, such as Herbert Mohammad, Raymond Shareef, who was the head of the Fruit of Islam, the brother-in-law of - the son-in-law of Elijah Mohammad. They isolated Malcolm X and kept him out of the newspaper of the organization Mohammad Speaks for over a year, which is kind of curious.

Meryl [Stripe]spoke out about the low percentage of female critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Why are there 760 male critics and just 168 women? You are immediately [biased] on what kind of films you are being told to go see. What are you told are good films? Male films.

When you invent something, there will always be people to criticise. God's creation is full of critics, but has God given up His creation because of the critics?

I've been pretty well treated by the critics, but the critics who didn't like my comedies hated them with an unbridled passion, and then I would see these same people writing very respectfully about ordinary naturalistic plays.

In fact, a lot of critics seemed to consider R.E.M. the first American music since the '60s to break out on its own and develop a stand-alone sound.

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

[John Calvin's] treatment of the person and work of Christ, of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, of prayer and liturgy, of the sacraments, and of the way in which we have an in-built sense of the divine that we suppress to our great sorrow - these are all immense contributions to Christian thought. The same could be said of his commentaries, which are still regularly consulted by biblical critics today.

I'm grateful for the likes of Kundera, Murnane, Markson, Berger, and, in his recent work, Coetzee. But no matter how celebrated they are, critics still consider them askance. Elizabeth Costello, for example, is a great novel, but it got quite a critical panning when it was published. The complaint was that it was simply a book of speeches, without the machinery of conventional fiction. Markson's books are compilations of facts and alleged facts, very artfully.

The more we refuse to buy into our inner critics - and our external ones too - the easier it will get to have confidence in our choices, and to feel comfortable with who we are.

We need to have great wealth and we need to have the critics of great wealth.

I am pushed by my critics. I don't want to say I want to prove them wrong, but it pushes me on the field to play with a chip on my shoulder, and I play best when I have a chip on my shoulder.

I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.

If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.

Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued.

You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.

The world still awaits a proper inquiry into climategate: one that is not stacked with global warming advocates and one that is prepared to cross-examine evidence, interview critics as well as supporters of the CRU and other IPCC players, and follow the evidence where it clearly leads.

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating. Youngsters need good models more than they need critics. It's one of a parent's greatest responsibilities and opportunities.

Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all!

Since I won't let the critics seal my fate, they keep hollering I'm full of hate. But they don't really hurt me none, 'cause I'm doing good and having fun.

The very aspect of religions that many of their critics most fear - that the religiously devout, in the name of their faith, take positions that differ from approved state policy - is one of their strengths.

I would simply ask why so many critics, so many writers, so many philosophers take such satisfaction in professing that the experience of a work of art is ineffable, that it escapes by definition all rational understanding; why are they so eager to concede without a struggle the defeat of knowledge; and where does their irrepressible need to belittle rational understanding come from, this rage to affirm the irreducibility of the work of art, or, to use a more suitable word, its transcendence.

To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of daily existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectuals -- and critics of the Women's Movement.

It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.

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.

I have heard the critics. What they are spewing are lies, nothing more. My defense policy calls for an efficient and strong military for our country. We live in dangerous times, but we must remember that we have to defend the United States against dangerous and modern threats. The Cold War is ending. Defense hawks like Senator Nunn need to understand this.

It used to worry me what people said about me. I'm learning not to worry as much. Sometimes you feel critics are wrong all the time, but I don 't take objection to it, because that's the way it goes. They can be wrong, they can be right. They can be cruel, they can be kind.

The New York art world readily proves people wrong. Just when folks say that things stink and flibbertigibbet critics wish the worst on us all because we're not pure enough, good omens appear.

I don't have any special advice for America's women, except to know who you are and to put your priorities in order and to not worry about the naysayers and critics say.

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.

As the great naturalist Charles Darwin saw clearly, individual and collective interests often coincide, as in the invisible hand narrative. But he also saw that in many other cases, interests at the two levels are squarely in conflict, and that in those cases, individual interests generally trump. That simple observation suggests that market failure is often the result not of insufficient competition (the traditional charge from social critics on the Left), but of the very logic of competition itself.

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

Even the European critics... They said Hostel is the smartest film they'd seen on capitalism and how it's gone too far.

Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.

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.

Critics? I love every bone in their heads.

If you write something and they all tell you it is bad - editors, critics, everybody - think it over and you may become convinced that they are right (though you are not to be ashamed or discouraged for a minute, but keep on writing).

Critics of NAFTA and CAFTA warned at the time that the agreements were actually a move toward ... an eventual merging of North America into a border-free area. Proponents of these agreements dismissed this as preposterous and conspiratorial. Now we see that the criticisms appear to be justified.

The word 'art' is very slippery. It really has no importance in relation to one's work. I work for the pleasure, for the pleasure of the work, and everything else is a matter for the critics.

Critics should find meaningful work.

So how critics will perceive your film or your work, or whether your movie is going to make $100 million at the box office, or whether you are going to be winning any awards - well, you have no control over that.

I was given permission to serve myself Communion, with wine and a wafer, on the surface on the Moon. But I was advised not to say anything about it at the time. Someone had strongly objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Bible. We didn't want to get into any further trouble with the religious critics.

The thing about having an audience right there laughing is that critics can write what they want, but the proof is right there in front of you.

We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn't fully grasp when we saw the work. The judgments we can usually make for ourselves.