Critics Quotes - Page 38

• This editor is a critic. He has pulled out his carving-knife and his tomahawk and is starting after a book which he is going to have for breakfast.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Knives, Editors

  Mark Twain (2016). “What Is Man? And Other Essays”, p.98, Xist Publishing

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• A delusion that encourages belief where there is no evidence is asking for trouble. Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. Instead, disagreements are settled by other means which, in extreme cases, inevitably become violent. Scientists disagree among themselves but they never fight over their disagreements. They argue about evidence or go out and seek new evidence. Much the same is true of philosophers, historians and literary critics.

  Richard Dawkins

  Mean, Fighting, Religion

  "The atheist". Interview with Gordy Slack, www.salon.com. May 1, 2005.

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• I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don't hurt me, because it is me.

  Paulo Coelho

  Hurt, Writing, Soul

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• It was a movement that had all the art critics, all the museum directors in its thrall.

  Jack Levine

  Art, Museums, Directors

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• Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved.

  Piero Scaruffi

  Past, Thinking, Rocks

  "Beatles" by Piero Scaruffi, www.scaruffi.com.

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• The second, and I think this is the much more overt and I think it is the main cause, I have been increasingly demonstrating or trying to demonstrate that every possible stance a critic, a scholar, a teacher can take towards a poem is itself inevitably and necessarily poetic.

  Harold Bloom

  Teacher, Thinking, Trying

  Harold Bloom, Robert Moynihan (1986). “A Recent imagining: interviews with Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller, Paul De Man”

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

  Donald Rumsfeld

  Iraq, People, President

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• Remind your critics when they say you don't have the expertise or experience to do something that an amateur built the ark and the experts built the Titanic

  Peyton Manning

  Believe In Yourself, Criticism, Experience

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• In Holman Hunt's painting, "The Light of the World, "Christ is shown in a garden at midnight, holding a lantern in His left hand. With His right hand He is knocking on a heavily paneled door. When the painting was unveiled, a critic remarked to the painter, "Mr. Hunt, the work is unfinished. There is no handle on the door." "That," Hunt answered, "is the door to the human heart. It can be opened only from the inside."

  James Keller

  Work, Heart, Garden

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• Many of the critics today get airline tickets, hotel accommodation, bags, beautiful photographs, gifts and other expenses paid by the distributors, and then are supposed to write serious articles about the movie.

  Wim Wenders

  Beautiful, Writing, Bags

  "'The culture of independent film criticism has gone down the drain'". Interview with Richard Phillips, www.wsws.org. January 10, 2000.

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• Like some of my other movies, 'Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes' is also a very political film, and many critics still consider it even the best of all the Apes movies, because it conveys a series of political viewpoints.

  J. Lee Thompson

  Movie, Political, Apes

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

  Robert Sheckley

  Science, Fiction, Whole

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• Most snarky critics had their minds set before ever seeing/playing the game. I'm proud of what we created; it's innovative, responsive & fun.

  Tony Hawk

  Fun, Playing Games, Mind

  Twitter post from Dec 5, 2009

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

  Joel Siegel

  Brilliant, Excellent, Performances

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• Culture is only true when implicitly critical, and the mind which forgets this revenges itself in the critics it breeds. Criticism is an indispensable element of culture.

  Theodor Adorno

  Revenge, Mind, Criticism

  Theodor W. Adorno (1982). “Prisms”, p.22, MIT Press

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• CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Work

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2369, Delphi Classics

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• Walter Duranty helped to turn the monster Stalin into a world figure and a hero of the leftistWestern intelligentsia by defending the bloodbath of the Soviet Union from its critics in the now famous: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

  Lance Morrow

  Hero, Ukraine, Eggs

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• No, writing musicals is the hardest thing in the world. And it was really funny, because I remember when the South Park movie came out, there were some critics that said, 'Well it's obvious that in order to get it to be 90 minutes they filled some time with music.'

  Trey Parker

  Funny, Writing, Order

  Interview with Jeff Otto, www.ign.com. May 12, 2005.

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• It's funny to be a critic.

  Leslie Fiedler

  Funny

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• At best, the relationship between drama critic and playwright is a pretty twiggy affair. When I'm asked whom I write for, after the obligatory, I write only for myself, I realize that I have an imaginary circle of peers - writers and respected or savvy theatre folk, some dramatic writers and some not, some living, some long gone. . . . Often a writer is aware as he works that a certain critic is going to hate this one. . . . You don't let what a critic might say worry you or alter your work; it might even add a spark to the gleeful process of creation.

  Lanford Wilson

  Hate, Drama, Writing

  "The Critic On My Shoulder" by Lanford Wilson, www.nytimes.com. December 29, 1996.

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• I'm back in fashion again for a while now. But I imagine that three or four years from now I'll be out again. And in another fifteen years I'll be back. If you try to write to stay in fashion, if you try to write to be the critics' darling, you become an employee.

  Edward Albee

  Fashion, Writing, Years

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• Most of us live for the critic, and he lives on us. He doesn't sacrifice himself. He gets so much a line for writing a criticism. If the birds should read the newspapers, they would all take to changing their notes. The parrots would exchange with the nightingales, and what a farce it would be!

  William Morris Hunt

  Writing, Sacrifice, Bird

  William Morris Hunt (1878). “W.M. Hunt's Talks about Art: With a Letter from J.E. Millais”

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• Critics should be to actors what ornithologists are to birds: they can write all they want, but it shouldn't affect them.

  John Simm

  Writing, Bird, Actors

  "John Simm: this much I know" by Olly Richards", www.theguardian.com. May 25, 2013.

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• I work for perfection, for perfection's sake. I don't care what the external reasons are. And it's much more like a ballerina on opening night. You've done what you've got to do. When you go out, the purpose is to turn a perfect turn. You are not thinking about the future of the company, you are not thinking about your future, you're not thinking about the critics, it is you and the perfect turn.

  Story Musgrave

  Future, Science, Thinking About You

  "NASA Distinguished Service Medal". The Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org. May 22, 1997.

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• Analysis of President Bush's tax plan has revealed that several elaborate tricks and gimmicks were used to make it look like a $1.35 trillion cut, but in reality it's going to be closer to costing $1.8 trillion. Critics claim it's math so fuzzy, you have to squint to see our nation's future of subsistence farming and post-apocalyptic roving motorcycle gangs.

  Jon Stewart

  Cutting, Math, Reality

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