Critics Quotes - Page 35

• When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.

  Helen Rowland

  Heart, Men, Giving

  Helen Rowland (1909). “Reflections of a Bachelor Girl”

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• Of course there are critics who believe that no matter what we do, the Florida dream is over. They claim that we must accept the idea that inevitably our future is one of high taxes and big government.

  Marco Rubio

  Dream, Believe, Florida

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• I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

  Salman Rushdie

  Thinking, Knows

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• Doris Lessing really doesn't care what the critics say. In fact, she orders her publishers not to send her the reviews and gets cross with them if they do because she doesn't want that in her head. She's going where she's going, and that's where she wants to go.

  Salman Rushdie

  Order, Care, Want

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• I've always said that an art critic can put aside politics around art.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Said, Art Critic

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• I don't often go to curator or artist walk-throughs of exhibitions. For a critic, it feels like cheating. I want to see shows with my own eyes, making my own mistakes, viewing exhibitions the way most of their audience sees them.

  Jerry Saltz

  Cheating, Mistake, Eye

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• I see around 100 shows a month, going from Niketown-size palaces where you feel like yelling, to storefronts in Bushwick. Each has to pay the bills; keep artists happy; and cope with collectors (oy!), curators (ay-yi-yi), critics (woo-hoo!), and occasionally plumbers. That their fiscal life often hangs in the balance only adds to the energy.

  Jerry Saltz

  Artist, Yelling, Balance

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• Too many younger artists, critics, and curators are fetishizing the sixties, transforming the period into a deformed cult, a fantasy religion, a hip brand, and a crippling disease.

  Jerry Saltz

  Artist, Disease, Hips

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• In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust writers of fiction who are assured literary critics; it makes me suspect that they favour the word over the world it should describe. Such scribes fall victim too easily to the solecism of equating style with morality.

  Will Self

  Fall, Style, Fiction

  "Incidents along the road" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. February 6, 2009.

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• It might be an idea for all literary critics to read the books they analyse aloud - it certainly helps to fix them in the mind, while providing a readymade seminar with your audience.

  Will Self

  Book, Ideas, Mind

  "Tails of the unexpected" by Will Self, www.theguardian.com. October 16, 2009.

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• Sometimes it occurs to me that the job of a serious cultural critic mostly consists in telling the generality of people that their opinions - on films, on books, on all manner of widgets, gadgets and even the latest electronic fidgets - simply aren't up to scratch.

  Will Self

  Jobs, Book, People

  "Will Self considers the Coen brothers". www.theguardian.com. February 11, 2011.

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• The British and American literary worlds operate in an odd kind of symbiosis: our critics think our contemporary novelists are not the stuff of greatness whereas certain contemporary Americans indubitably are. Their critics often advance the exact opposite: British fiction is cool, American naff.

  Will Self

  Greatness, Thinking, Opposites

  "All pleasant and correct". www.theguardian.com. June 30, 1996.

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• I write books that seem more suitable for children, and that's OK with me. They are a better audience and tougher critics. Kids tell you what they think, not what they think they should think.

  Maurice Sendak

  Children, Book, Writing

  "Maurice Sendak Dead: 'Where The Wild Things Are' Author Dies At 83" by the Associated Press, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 8, 2012.

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• Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right.

  Joseph Sobran

  Father, Government, Empathy

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• I am pushed by my critics. I don't want to say I want to prove them wrong, but it pushes me on the field to play with a chip on my shoulder, and I play best when I have a chip on my shoulder.

  Hope Solo

  Play, Want, Fields

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• Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.

  Susan Sontag

  Failure, Criticism, Lapses

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• The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Real, Mean

  Susan Sontag (1983). “A Susan Sontag reader”, Vintage

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• Nothing could ever stop Kiss. I've seen the band in down times where critics were like vultures circling overhead saying things like, 'Well, you know it's the end of your career.'

  Paul Stanley

  Kissing, Careers, Band

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• Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

  John Steinbeck

  Writing, Play, Giving

  "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Fourth Series". Book edited by George Plimpton. Chapter "On Critics", 1977.

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• Time is the only critic without ambition.

  John Steinbeck

  Time, Ambition, Judgment

  "Writers at Work, Fourth Series (On Critics)". Book edited by George Plimpton, 1977.

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• Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

  Tom Stoppard

  Art, Skills, America

  Artist Descending a Staircase (1972)

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• I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: 'I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.'

  Barbra Streisand

  Writing, Play, Wish

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• Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but for the most part it's the other way around: companies must make what consumers want and deliver it at the lowest possible price.

  James Surowiecki

  Thinking, Want, Way

  "Penny-Wise" by James Surowiecki, www.newyorker.com. September 27, 2004.

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• You can get sucked into the idea that, 'Gosh, this is impressive. Maybe I should do this. It will look good.' Or 'I'll write like this because it will impress that critic.'

  Amy Tan

  Writing, Ideas, Looks

  "Author of The Joy Luck Club". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

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• If I wasn't a film-maker, I'd be a film critic. It's the only thing I'd be qualified to do.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Film Critics, Makers, Qualified

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