Best 544 quotes in «critics quotes» category

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

What they [critics of Lessing's switch to science fiction] didn't realize was that in science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time.

What you want is the thing that critics love and audiences love, but that's the hardest thing to do.

When a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime.

When all the performances are excellent, critics understand it's the direction.

When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.

When critics ask you if you feel vindicated by other critics - I didn't like critics then, and I don't like them now. There you go. I've always been outside the mainstream, and it stayed that way.

When critics sit in judgment it is hard to tell where justice leaves off and vengeance begins.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

When I started I had no knowledge of films whatsoever. I was an engineering major at Stanford. And I found out as a senior that they had two film critics on the Stanford Daily, and they got free passes to all the theaters in Palo Alto. So I thought, I'll do that, and I became a film critic. And then I became interested in films. But I had no time to study anything in that area because I was a senior, just finishing up as engineering.

When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care.

When you do something that you know is authentic - embrace it, run with it, and trust yourself before the critics.

You cannot lecture on really pure poetry any more than you can talk about the ingredients of pure water-it is adulterated, methylated, sanded poetry that makes the best lectures.

Why can't fellows be allowed to do what they like when they like and as they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them?

With the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth... the critic

where is the 'punch' in sweetness and light?

Without my protectionm your journey is doomed before you begin.' Great! I thought. Even the snake is a critic!

Women critics are amazons in climax.

You can't be a critic by simply being a griper. One has also to search out the examples of good work.

You have an internal critic, an internal drive that says, 'OK, you can do more.' Maybe that's what keeps you going.

You don't have to fight every battle. You don't have to respond to every critic. You don't have to be offended because of what others say. You can rise above these things and soar.

You have to channel the interpretation and performance into 100 people. And with the audience, the critics.

You have to remain flexible, and you must be your own critic at all times.

You have to have courage to stand up to your critics.

You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art.

Your camera is the best critic there is. Critics never see as much as the camera does. It is more perceptive than the human eye.

Your critics do not count. Their words will fade. You won't.

A critic must be knowledgeable in several fields, practices, and mediums. Brushing off art that they personally don't understand, is not a critique.

A critic can call any poem 'doggerel.' That is no more than a slur. 'Doggerel' or 'maudlin' or 'sappy' or 'sentimental' is in the ear of the listener. By the by, 'sentimental' is okay as it is defined as 'marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism.' It is 'sentimentality' that is to be avoided, like the fiddleback spider, being as it is 'the quality or state of being sentimental to excess or in affectation.' Again we are faced with a judgement call and must keep a sharp eye on our outpourings to insure they are not overly gooey. The intellectual elite probably believe that most of the lyrics songwriters create are 'doggerel' of one kind or another--that is to say 'trivial"......the young songwriter has now been warned about the implacable nature of the enemy. Under a rather large umbrella, preferred twentieth-century taste in art of all kinds has been characterized by a kind of detachment, or sangfroid. It is simply not chic to be carried away in one's emotional reaction to a subject. All serious communication or complaint must be carefully wrapped in a protective coating of irony and/or satire.

Advice is often free but context worth a king's ransom

Advice is free but context worth a king's ransom.

A helping hand is better than a critical tongue.

A lion does not earn its crown quarreling with sheep.

All great people had critics but they still believe in the beauty of their dreams, fully persuaded to stay focused and determined for the realisation of their dreams.

All great people had critics, but they still believe in beauty of their dreams.

Anaemia is an illness primarily affecting characters in novels.

And, instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemny thoughtful.

An eagle never loses sleep over a turkey's sentiments.

Anybody will do for you, but not for me. I must have somebody.

A rose does not lose sleep because it was mocked by weeds.

A rose does not answer its enemies with words, but with beauty.

As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs." [Time Magazine, October 31, 1977]

At that shameful stage in the development of our criticism, literary abuse would overstep all limits of decorum; literature itself was a totally extraneous matter in critical articles: they were pure invective, a vulgar battle of vulgar jokes, double-entendres, the most vicious calumnies and offensive constructions. It goes without saying, that in this inglorious battle, the only winners were those who had nothing to lose as far as their good name was concerned. My friends and I were totally deluded. We imagined ourselves engaged in the subtle philosophical disputes of the portico or the academy, or at least the drawing room. In actual fact we were slumming it.

Being a critic is easy. But if the critic tries to run the operation, he soon understands that nothing is as easy as his criticisms. Criticism without a solution is merely an inflation of the critic's ego.

Be like the sun; never let the opinions of those who hate you dull your shine.

Believe in yourself, not in your critics.

Be like seeds; do not see dirt thrown at you as your enemy, but as ground to grow.

By encouraging the critic in themselves (the hater) they have killed the artist (the lover).

Beware of those who criticize you when you deserve some praise for an achievement, for it is they who secretly desire to be worshiped.