Critics Quotations

Critics have a job to do. I understand that. It's not just to criticize. They're trying to interpret art for the public.

A critic is a eunuch working in a harem. He watches it, but he knows he can't do it. Critics very often are failed writers and, like failed priests, they hate religion.

In the early nineteenth century, with Enlightenment optimism soured by years of war and revolution, critics were skeptical of America's naive faith that it had reinvented politics.

I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck.

Male critics and men in the publishing industry want from their women writers what they want from their wives. I'm interested in presenting characters that are more challenging, threatening, complicated and unpredictable.

I am strongly convinced that the people or society is the best and the most unerring critic.

Things don't just fall into place because you have a dream. You're always going to have those negative thoughts. Our minds love to play with us - we're going to be our own worst critics - but I just say to myself, 'File it back.' I just try to bring any negative thoughts to light and deal with them, so I can file them away.

What surprised me most about fame is how unpleasant it can be. I used to think it was going to be so fun. I got excited about the parties. You don't anticipate friends being jealous of you and critics giving your music bad reviews. Media and rumors - that stuff hurts.

I care very much what the fans think. I'm starting to loosen my grip on caring about what critics say, because I think that critics care about what fans think of them, too, so there's a little bit of a refraction there, through that glass.

I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.

Restaurant critics all struggle with the difficulty of writing about eating without resorting to the word 'delicious' and its synonyms.

America gave the world the notion of the melting pot - an alchemical cooking device wherein diverse ethnic and religious groups voluntarily mix together, producing a new, American identity. And while critics may argue that the melting pot is a national myth, it has tenaciously informed the America's collective imagination.

Critics often say, 'Oh she makes films about strong women'. Wrong; I make films about complex characters and the choices they make.

The No. 1 quote critics give me is, 'Thom, your work is irrelevant.' Now, that's a fascinating, fascinating comment. Yes, irrelevant to the little subculture, this microculture, of modern art. But here's the point: My art is relevant because it's relevant to 10 million people. That makes me the most relevant artist in this culture.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.

The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand.

If I listened to my critics, I would still be at home under my bed right now.

Some day I'll make a film that critics will like. When I have money to waste.

I think it's unfortunate to have critics for friends.

Neither praise or blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly to award. These are the true aims and duties of criticism.

Reviewers and critics can be overly cynical. If something the least bit sentimental comes up, they'll often start flying off the handle. But I'm like, 'Wait a minute, you've had those times in your life. Everybody has.'

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

The Eagles and the critics were not the best of friends.

There are many critics who think the megachurches thrive on people who enjoy dramatic Sunday services with fine music but don't wish to become very 'religious' on a day-to-day basis - that the megachurch appeal is a mile wide and an inch deep.

No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.

My inner critic who had begun piping up about how hopeless I was and how I didn't know to write.

Somehow I wasn't completely crucified by the critics. I don't know how or why, I probably should've been.

I try not to read reviews. It's hard not to hear what the critics are saying, but as an actor, I try not to let it in and to just give the best performances I can. At the end of the day, if you're trying to please the critics, you're missing what's really important: being creative and having fun.

It's a lot more fun being a critic than being the one criticized.

I mean, when I got to Brown, the place was riven, because you had older professors who were basically new critics and had been teaching a certain way for 30 years. And then you had this other gang who was down with the semiotic program. And as a student, you were, in a way, forced to choose which cohort you were going with.

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

I haven't seen the show, but when it was finished I felt good about what we had done. I don't know how it will stack up with Survival, but that'll be up to the critics.

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.

But you can still find good films if you read your local film critics and are willing to drive a bit. You have to be a proactive film viewer to have the most provocative cinema life.

Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.

It's difficult to see yourself up on screen without being a critic.

A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn't.

I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

To this day, the only argument against Obama that critics can seem to come up with involves admitting he's better than them - though they certainly season it with some racism. You know, he's that lucky black man who actually appeals to the populace. He's that elitist who got himself off food stamps and into Harvard.

Why movie and dance critics are taking 'The Company' seriously, I can't imagine. Are they impressed by Altman's reputation and naive sincerity? By the fluid semi-documentary approach?

As a writer, it's important to stay true to your story without giving a hoot about publishers, critics and readers. You should do your karma as an author the way you want to, and rest is up to God.

Rock is periodically pronounced dead by clear rock critics - killed by world music, or by hip-hop, or electronica, or the Backstreet Boys. But if you wait a year, it comes back to life.

I became a film director, but I wasn't successful with my first couple of films, so I had to turn to becoming a film critic to make a living.

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.

Critics called me 'egregious' - I had to look that one up - and 'creepy', but now I don't read them, I weigh them.

One of the things that strikes me is so many of the critics are people whose lifestyle doesn't change when the price of fuel changes, or if they keep a Wal-Mart store out of their area.

Well, I'm not a critic, I'm just a worker. So, I'm always grateful for anything the critics say - good or bad.

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.

They have vilified me, they have crucified me; yes, they have even criticized me.

I was so ordinary, critics couldn't understand it, but looking back, that was the reason for my success. What you see is what you get. People thought, 'I could do that.'

When 'Destroyer' was first released, we got a strong backlash from our hardcore fans. After six months, the album was dead in the water. The critics didn't think much of it, either.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

I have never been a critic of science fiction as a whole.

Somehow I took whatever criticism there was very much to heart.

Romanticism has never been properly judged. Who was there to judge it? The critics!

My father assigned me to keep his scrapbooks. At first I was interested in reading only his rave notices, but I got interested in reading what the critics were saying about whether the play was good or not.

The critics tend to forget their own answers after a while

I think there were early critics who wanted us to change the world because the Sex Pistols failed.

I say to consumers: instead of relying totally on critics, drink what you like and like what you drink.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don't have to worry about anything.

I had wanted to write English crime novels based on the American hard-boiled style, and for the first two novels about Brixton, the critics didn't actually know I was Irish.

Whenever a high-profile leader dies, people immediately attempt to summarize that person's life in a sentence. Often, critics and commentators get caught up looking at the leader's style, or which political or philosophical camp they represented.

Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we'll reach a certain point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we'd do and become will never come to be - and that we're ordinary.

If you get a bad review, you take that in your stride.

My job is to write opinions. I decide cases and write opinions. It is not to respond to idiocy and critics who make statements that are unfounded. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have constructive criticisms, but it should be constructive.

At first, I wasn't sure whether I'd be a critic or a filmmaker, but I knew it would be something like that.

Also, many consumers consider a critic to be like God Almighty.

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.

Critics themselves, they used to tear me up.

I learned a lot about critics, not to really take them too seriously about movies.

To all my critics, you get paid to be negative.

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

I DJ and I'm a harsh critic of DJs.

It's not the journalists; it's the critics that I can't understand. I've never understood what kind of a person would want to criticize someone else's work.

I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself.

Those critics awards come and go every year, but the finished movie is your work.

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?

To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.

Filmmakers and critics wrote about each other and sometimes very harshly. This no longer exists.

Many critics of the Palestinians, especially those in Congress, think the current calm is merely the eye of the storm. That's why the House of Representatives approved a foreign aid package last week that forbade the direct financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority .

Critics seem to forget that every love story is different - that there is uniqueness in even the most commonplace of matches.

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

I've had the greatest respect for my work in this country by Americans. Critics have no brains.

I know that I'm never as good or bad as any single performance. I've never believed my critics or my worshippers, and I've always been able to leave the game at the arena.

I'm a people's actor, not a critics' actor, and I always have been.

There are many critics who invite me on their show, and I have told them that when my film releases, you will give it one-and-a-half star rating. That's fine. There's no issue because stars will matter when I'm planning to open a five star hotel. When I'm making films, I don't need stars.

I'm not going to worry about the critics until some of my peers start saying I'm a softie.

When I started blogging in 2004, I responded to every comment no matter how nasty the reader was. I was generally polite, believing that these critics would be so charmed by my professionalism that they would see the error of their misogynist ways and swiftly run out to read a bell hooks book. Ha!

I'm in my 10th generation of TV critic now.

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

I have been extremely lucky with reviewers and critics throughout my career.

I'm not a food critic, and I'm not really an authority to write anything on food.

I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written

It would not be fair to the critics of Rotary, who include some of the most brilliant of the British and American writers, to charge them with prejudice.

The critics - how come you never see any of them on TV?

I can't name three first-rate literary critics in the United States. I'm told there are a few hidden away at universities, but they don't print them in 'The New York Times.'