Critics Quotes - Page 13

• I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Two, Radio, Our Society

  Radio-Television News Directors Association Convention Address, delivered 15 October 1958, Chicago, Illinois

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their plowing of the soil. The horse works, all its muscles drawn tight like the strings on a double-bass, and a fly settles on his flanks and tickles and buzzes. And what does the fly buzz about? It scarcely knows itself; simply because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'Look, I too am living on the earth. See, I can buzz, too, buzz about anything.'

  Anton Chekhov

  Horse, Double Bass, Doe

  16 Copy quote

• To achieve respectability, to be admitted to the debate, they must accept without question or inquiry the fundamental doctrine that the state is benevolent, governed by the loftiest intentions, adopting a defensive stance, not an actor in world affairs but only reacting to the crimes of others...If even the harshest of critics tacitly adopt these premises, then the ordinary person may ask, who am I to disagree?

  Noam Chomsky

  Ordinary, Doctrine, Inquiry

  4 Copy quote

• Immortality is a by-product of good work. Masterpieces are not for artists, they're for critics. Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together. My message to the world is 'Let's swing, sing, shout, make noise! Let's not mimic death before our time comes! Let's be wet and noisy!'

  Mel Brooks

  Artist, Swings, Together

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some critics are emotionally desiccated, personally about as attractive as a year-old peach in a single girl's refrigerator.

  Mel Brooks

  Girl, Years, Peaches

  "Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview". Interview with Alex Belth, www.thedailybeast.com. February 16, 2014.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like "enthralling" and "luminous."

  William Zinsser

  Space, Adjectives, Quiver

  William Knowlton Zinsser (1980). “On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, HarperCollins Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's good to have critics because that's what motivates you and helps you take your game to another level.

  Michael Vick

  Games, Levels, Helping

  18 Copy quote

• I'm my own biggest critic. I'm the one who has to go home and look at myself in the mirror.

  Tony Gonzalez

  Home, Mirrors, Looks

  5 Copy quote

• Every time I work out in the gym, every time I train, I know I'm going to do well. But I like surprising the fans, the critics, the people who doubt me.

  Oscar De La Hoya

  Work Out, People, Doubt

  14 Copy quote

• A critic is a man who expects miracles.

  James Gibbons

  Men, Miracle

  4 Copy quote

• It's not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of the deeds could have done better.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Strong, Men, Done

  4 Copy quote

• The most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticized.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Matter, Knows

  Ulysses S. Grant (2007). “Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant”, p.60, Cosimo, Inc.

  207 Copy quote

  Show source

• A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn't like.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Men

  7 Copy quote

• The Bible has, amazingly- no doubt with supernatural grace-survived its critics. The harder tyrants try to eliminate it and skeptics dismiss it, the better read it becomes.

  Charles Colson

  Tyrants, Grace, Doubt

  Charles Colson, Harold Fickett (2008). “The Faith: What Christians Believe, why They Believe It, and why it Matters”, p.55, Harper Collins

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• No government should be without critics. If its intentions are good then it has nothing to fear from criticism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Criticism, Intention

  108 Copy quote

• The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural for them to despise science fiction.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Hate, War, College

  4 Copy quote

• During the days of my youth, critics and art-lovers resorted freely to this term of abuse. Even some of the most renowned Old Masters were also pilloried as having manufactured insipid and sugary paintings that were offensive to good taste.

  Ernst Gombrich

  Art, Abuse, Taste

  Ernst Hans Gombrich (2002). “The preference for the primitive: episodes in the history of Western taste and art”, Phaidon Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The London 'Academy' has seen fit recently to scoff at the critics who have been exercising themselves ove rthe so-called art of the Short Story... But the new Short Story has gained more individuality. It supports the magazines and has invaded the newspapers

  Henry Seidel Canby

  Art, Exercise, Support

  4 Copy quote

• I have often read critical pieces where the critic said that what the composer was trying to do didn't come off. I have wondered what the critic meant if he didn't know what the composer was trying to do.

  Ornette Coleman

  Trying, Pieces, Said

  15 Copy quote

• All players are their own worst critics. We are harder on ourselves than anyone else is.

  Nomar Garciaparra

  Player, Worst, Harder

  4 Copy quote

• I do not put myself in a box and say, for instance, I'm writing post-colonial literature. I don't know what I'm writing. That's the business of professors and critics. My job is to tell a story, and that's it.

  Isabel Allende

  Jobs, Writing, Stories

  "Isabel Allende: Despite Terrorism, the World Is a Better Place Now Than Ever Before". Interview with Michael Skafidas, www.huffingtonpost.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Feeling is taboo, especially in New York. I read in some little magazine the other day that The New Yorker and The New York Times were sclerotic, meaning, "completely turned to rock." The critics here are that way.

  James Purdy

  New York, Rocks, Feelings

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Peter Berg

  Thinking, Differences, Challenges

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• This one goes out to all my critics: don't you feel stupid? Look how I did it. Look how it came to pass when I said it.

  Nicki Minaj

  Stupid, Looks, Said

  4 Copy quote

• If you only took on roles that had the same qualities, then I suppose it might make a critic feel better, if he can see some kind of bedrock. Perhaps that's the old definition of a star, someone who's always going to come up with the same goods. But it intimates limitation to me and I don't want to think of the job like that.

  Miranda Richardson

  Jobs, Stars, Feel Better

  "Classic interview: Miranda Richardson". Interview with James Saynor, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source