James Wolcott Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• What's happening to movie critics is no different from what has been meted out to book, dance, theater, and fine-arts reviewers and reporters in the cultural deforestation that has driven refugees into the diffuse clatter of the Internet and Twitter, where some adapt and thrive - such as Roger Ebert - while others disappear without a twinkle.

  James Wolcott

  Inspirational, Dance, Art

  5 Copy quote

• Being raised Catholic in a pressure-cooker household besieged by alcohol and bill collectors enforced and heightened a sense of sentry duty in me, the oldest of five children and the one most responsible for keeping everything from capsizing. Wild indulgence was for other people, the non-worriers.

  James Wolcott

  Children, People, Alcohol

  7 Copy quote

• [Richard Crossley's] previous bird guide, for ID'ing Eastern birds, is the most imaginative, original attempt to re-envision the birding guide and set his approach apart from that of Sibley, Kaufman, Peterson, Nat'l Geo, and the other bibles in the field.

  James Wolcott

  Bird, Fields, Guides

  4 Copy quote

• The Internet and blogging made writing somewhat more solitary and more splintered. It removes the whole sense of the magazine as an organism. A certain dynamism. At The Village Voice, there were all these fevers inside the offices, that would break out into full-scale rumbles between writers. The New Yorker used to be notorious for everything that went on, sexual intrigues and people had individual offices, they could close the door and take a bottle out of their bottom drawer or have sex on their desk.

  James Wolcott

  Writing, People, Office

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• People want somebody to be a daredevil, even if they're not going to be a daredevil themselves.

  James Wolcott

  People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• The whole ecosystem of celebrity has broken down for writers. If you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s, writers were on TV a lot, and they were allowed to misbehave a lot. Truman Capote was a pop figure, but it wasn't until he went on David Susskind's show and had that extraordinary voice and manner that everyone could imitate, that he really took off as a figure. Norman Mailer and Vidal, the same thing. The bestselling writers now, there's no great animal energy with them.

  James Wolcott

  Animal, Broken, Energy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I remember reading about police arresting this filmmaker making this freaky movie and his name was John Waters. And I was like, wow, someone in Baltimore is doing something creative? I didn't know there were people running off and making eight-millimeter movies. Then I got to New York and realized, oh, there's a whole world of people who do these things. I was utterly bored being in the suburbs, but I didn't know why I was bored.

  James Wolcott

  Running, Reading, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Particularly fine is the top-heavy comedienne, Loni Anderson, as the receptionist whose movements turn men to stone...she keeps her head while all the men around her are losing theirs.

  James Wolcott

  Men, Stones, Losing

  4 Copy quote

• I understand the people-watching, but I've never done it where people have to race to three different shows, from here to there. I mean, the biggest zoo I ever faced was Comic Con, and Comic Con takes place in one big hangar.

  James Wolcott

  Zoos, Mean, Race

  Source: www.vanityfair.com

  4 Copy quote

• I've always stayed on the periphery of things. When I used to go to the punk clubs and things like that, I was never up front. I always wanted to be in the back, or on the side, because I wanted to get the whole view, rather than be staring up at someone's nostrils.

  James Wolcott

  Views, Clubs, Sides

  Source: www.vanityfair.com

  4 Copy quote

• One of the mistakes they often make is the designers over-accessorize or over-elaborate. So you realize: this would work if they removed X and Y. And actually, that's the sort of thing that translates into writing, because a lot of the time you realize, I feel I need to add something here but actually what I need to do is subtract. And then there's always the psychodrama and the tears and the rage and the feuds.

  James Wolcott

  Mistake, Writing, Tears

  Source: www.vanityfair.com

  4 Copy quote

• Slashing its way to the finish line, Black Swan is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.

  James Wolcott

  Swans, Ballet, Black

  "Swan Down: James Wolcott's Review". "Opera Chic" blog, December 06, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• The days when the words Hollywood actor framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor now, a shameless ham in a hoked-up reality series that never stops.

  James Wolcott

  Party, Reality, Tea

  4 Copy quote

• What a turnaround in sentiment 'Glee' exemplifies. It was only a few years ago that pursuing the dream of a Broadway career or cabaret stardom relegated some poor yearning dope to a lavender ghetto of losers, self-deluders, and social rejects.

  James Wolcott

  Dream, Ghetto, Dope

  9 Copy quote

• The advent of DVD/Blu-ray reissues of classic Hollywood and foreign films has been a boon to film buffs, who can now study their favorites in all their glistening detail and restored palettes.

  James Wolcott

  Dvds, Rays, Hollywood

  4 Copy quote

• At 'The Village Voice,' there were all these fevers inside the offices, that would break out into full-scale rumbles between writers.

  James Wolcott

  Voice, Office, Break Out

  "James Wolcott’s Old New York". Interview with Royal Young, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 25, 2011.

  11 Copy quote

• Bad acting comes in many bags, various odors. It can be performed by cardboard refugees from an Ed Wood movie, reciting their dialogue off an eye chart, or by hopped-up pros looking to punch a hole through the fourth wall from pure ballistic force of personality, like Joe Pesci in a bad mood. I can respect bad acting that owns its own style.

  James Wolcott

  Wall, Eye, Personality

  7 Copy quote

• The unhappy irony is that, while 'Glee' is hitting the heights, school arts funding is being slashed across the country due to the steep recession and declining tax revenues.

  James Wolcott

  Country, Art, School

  4 Copy quote

• Republicans: steely, rational, paternalistic, respectful of authority, easy to herd, the party of No. Democrats: sugary, emotional, idealistic, yearning for novelty, hard to marshal, the party of Oh Yeah, Baby, Make Mama Feel Good.

  James Wolcott

  Baby, Party, Emotional

  4 Copy quote

• Today a celebrity sex video isn't a stigma that requires penance and smarm removal; it's a branding device, a platform enhancer, a show reel.

  James Wolcott

  Sex, Today, Penance

  4 Copy quote

• A lost election can have the jolt of a drop through the gallows door, leading to a dark night of the soul in which the future presses down like a cloud that will never lift.

  James Wolcott

  Dark, Night, Clouds

  7 Copy quote

• My high-school papers, my college-application essays, read like Norman Mailer packed in a crunchy-peanut-butter sandwich.

  James Wolcott

  School, College, Paper

  4 Copy quote

• I understand that one of the purposes of bipartisanship is to cram something difficult and necessary down the American people's gullets for which neither party has the fortitude to assume full responsibility. It's a way of turning a possible gangplank into a teeter-totter.

  James Wolcott

  Party, Responsibility, People

  4 Copy quote

• With Barack Obama as president and the super-happening Michelle Obama as First Lady, you would think a new tone, a new tune, a kicky new jazzitude, would have entered Washington discourse, but it remains a landlocked island unto itself, held captive by its tribal fevers.

  James Wolcott

  Thinking, Islands, President

  "What’s Wrong With Washington?" by James Wolcott, www.vanityfair.com. May 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• In 2008, Barack Obama did get Democrats hyperventilating, whipped up to a creamy froth, while John McCain creaked ahead like a cranky granddad whom Republicans let move to the front of the buffet line, deferring to seniority, as they had in 1996, when Bob Dole turtled to the top of the ticket.

  James Wolcott

  Moving, Bob, Buffets

  12 Copy quote

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