Critics Quotes - Page 38

• Youth need less critics and more models.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Needs, Youth, Models

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• When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

  Oscar Wilde

  Artist, Criticism, Beneath The Surface

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.175, Courier Corporation

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• The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

  W. H. Auden

  Taken, Criticism, Salt

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• The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Artist, Creative, Criticism

  The Innocence of Father Brown "The Blue Cross" (1911)

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• With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.

  Ray Bradbury

  School, Intellectual, Swimmer

  Ray Bradbury (2012). “Fahrenheit 451: A Novel”, p.55, Simon and Schuster

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• Life … is a bit like reading. … If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon by a professional critic, then what point is there to your reading? Only that it’s yours. Similarly, why live your life? Because it’s yours. But what if such an answer becomes less and less convincing?

  Julian Barnes

  Book, Reading, Live Your Life

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• In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.

  Charles Simic

  Children, Divorce, Class

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• The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, Art, Impression

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.3, Wordsworth Editions

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• I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "Science Fiction" ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Mistake, Fiction, Serious

  "Science Fiction". The New York Times Book Review, September 5, 1965.

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• Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do?

  Anne Lamott

  Risk, Secret, Wish

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• Work freely and rollickingly as though you were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters.

  Brenda Ueland

  Love You, Talking, Three

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• I'm the guy who reputedly denies that people experience colors or pains, and thinks that thermostats think — just ask my critics.

  Daniel Dennett

  Pain, Thinking, Color

  Daniel C. Dennett (2014). “Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life”, p.289, Simon and Schuster

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• In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

  John Steinbeck

  Choices, Criticism, Attention

  John Steinbeck (1980). “Travels with Charley in Search of America”, p.47, Penguin

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• Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic

  Stephen Covey

  Leadership, Character, Light

  Stephen R. Covey (2016). “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Interactive Edition”, p.109, Mango Media Inc.

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• There are conversations going on about the Church constantly. Those conversations will continue whether or not we choose to participate in them. But we cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what our Church teaches... We are living in a world saturated with all kinds of voices. Perhaps now, more than ever, we have a major responsibility as Latter-day Saints to define ourselves, instead of letting others define us.

  M. Russell Ballard

  Responsibility, Lds, Voice

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• Let's find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. ...When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book "The Origin Of Species" he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions.

  Dale Carnegie

  Religious, Book, Rocks

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• If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Voice, Self Hate, Not Afraid

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.23, Shambhala Publications

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• People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American.

  David Sedaris

  Paris, People, Frightened

  David Sedaris (2000). “Me talk pretty one day”

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• Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food.

  Alain de Botton

  Book, Best Effort, Taste

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• In the high school classroom you are a drill sergent, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.

  Frank McCourt

  Mother, Brother, Uncles

  Frank McCourt (2005). “Teacher Man: A Memoir”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• Perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It doesn't believe in improvement. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly--and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner's work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn't know how to say, "Good try," or "Job well done." The critic does not believe in creative glee--or any glee at all, for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter.

  Julia Cameron

  Jobs, Believe, Practice

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• As soon seek roses in December, ice in June, Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff Believe a woman or an epitaph Or any other thing that’s false Before you trust in critics.

  Lord Byron

  Confidence, Believe, June

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.589, Delphi Classics

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• No other German writer of comparable stature has been a more extreme critic of German nationalism than Nietzsche.

  Walter Kaufmann

  Extremes, Has Beens, Stature

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• Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

  Jean Cocteau

  Editors, Criticism, Theatre

  "If your identity is inscribed for you from the outside, it’s even more difficult to escape". Interview with Stephanie LaCava, logger.believermag.com. July 1, 2014.

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• Americans have a taste for…rocking-chairs. A flippant critic might suggest that they select rocking-chairs so that, even when they are sitting down, they need not be sitting still. Something of this restlessness in the race may really be involved in the matter; but I think the deeper significance of the rocking-chair may still be found in the deeper symbolism of the rocking-horse. I think there is behind all this fresh and facile use of wood a certain spirit that is childish in the good sense of the word; something that is innocent, and easily pleased.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Horse, Thinking, Race

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