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.

I'm not trying to brainwash my critics. If they're critics, they're critics, and that's their job to be critical, but I certainly enjoy the involvement I have with my fans. I enjoy the time I get to spend with them, and I don't waste time with someone stubborn who is not going to come around.

Insofar as we, critics of the black tradition, master our craft, we serve both to preserve our own traditions and to shape their direction. All great writers demand great 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.

The New Yorker's' drama critics have always had a comparable authority because, for the most part, the magazine made it a practice to employ critics who moonlighted in the arts. They worked both sides of the street, so to speak.

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

Have you ever noticed how most critics disagree with the public? That should tell you a lot about critics.

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.

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.

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.

There's always been a lot of negative stuff written about me. That's why I don't pay any attention to the critics. They've never liked anything I've done. What do critics know? It's the way the audience reacts that matters.

Critics are to authors what dogs are to lamp-posts.

The biggest critics of my books are the people who never read them.

Some critics saw fit to say that I was a great actress. I thought that was a foolish, wicket thing to say because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry.

It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good heart whatever they might have to say.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

Every time you start a project, you're hopeful that the critics receive it warmly.

Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge--criticism however is only the result of good sense, taste and judgment--three qualities that indeed seldom are found together, and extremely seldom in a pedant, which most critics are.

Critics have told me I've ruined the lives of 50 million young people. I can't be certain of this, since only about 10 million have ever come back to thank me.

Those who live off of the donations of capitalism are often its greatest critics.

Our loyalty lies with little taxpayers, not big spenders. What our critics really believe is that those in Washington know better how to spend your money than you, the people, do. But we're not going to let them do it, period.

Critics haven't taught me my cricket, and they don't know what my body and mind are up to.

I think the biggest challenge was being aware of a certain audience that was going to see this film [lone survivor]. There's a big difference from a typical movie, journalists and critics and film goers that go see it find that, that's the general experience you have as a filmmaker. So that just kind of proves my point that there's a really different audience.

These critics who crucify me do not guess the littlest part of my sincerity. They must be burned in a blaze. I cannot learn from them.

I understand that artists and critics make a big deal over the Grammys. But when I go to my shows and I'm selling out arenas in London, and when I'm in Australia and Japan, there aren't any Grammys there. There are human beings who I've touched. There are human beings who are inspired by me, who I love dearly. And that's what my career is based on.

The Americans only like things they can label, even if it kills them. Think of those poor Latin American writers. Some of them are very good. But the "magical realism" label has absolutely ruined them. The critics are like tourists who return from a trip saying they've "done" Machu Picchu: "Okay, we've done magical realism," so now we can throw it out.

Implementation of technological change must involve critics as well as advocates.

As far as critics, I'm not a hip guy. I was never on drugs. Nobody ever felt sorry for me 'cause I went straight or found God. I always had God. I've always like, played by the rules.

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.

Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a f@*$%load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

It's over. The franchise is dead. The press killed it. Your magazine f**king killed it. New York Magazine. It's like all the critics got together and said, 'This franchise must die.' Because they all had the exact same review. It's like they didn't see the movie. Got any more gum?

My biggest critics have never read me.

What most forms of Consequentialism cannot do is require us to act in such a way as to make the world worse, yet many of the objections to Consequentialism purport to show that Consequentialism requires us to make the world a stinking, bloody mess. The ubiquity of these kinds of arguments shows you just how unseriously many of the critics take Consequentialism.

Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.

Generally people are afraid. They pretend they aren’t; it’s part of the denial. We’re all part of it. As much as we pretend otherwise, we want what’s comfortable, and we’re afraid of the different. We’re afraid of change. It happened in Los Angeles, too, when the first models of Disney Hall were shown. You should have heard the outcry from the public, critics and press. It was called “broken crockery,” “outlandish” and blah blah blah. Of course now the feeling is different.

There's always been what I would call the William Carlos Williams strain, in which poems of simplicity and clarity are valued by a different community. I was talking to Galway Kinnell one day, and he said that there was an audience for poetry up until about 1920 and then, from that point on, the poets and the critics drifted.

Money drives the world, but when everything falls apart to leave the underpinnings of our life bare to the scrutiny of critics and thieves, the only thing remaining, the only thing that can't be taken away, is the love you hold for the people you care about.

Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses.

We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie.

If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.

A few. . . critics are the only people I ever heard use the phrase 'imminent threat.' I didn't, the president didn't.

Don't let fear of failure discourage you. Don't let the voice of critics paralyze you - whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside.

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.

You're happy that people are seeing your work. As for the critics, it really hurts when they knock you.

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.

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.

When critics or art historians or curators ask me why I still paint, the answer is that I am not naive.