Critic Quotes · Page 15

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

— John Steinbeck

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

— E. M. Forster

I'm the worst critic about music myself. I hardly ever, ever like something the first time I listen to it.

— Marc Martel

A critic is a man created to praise greater men than himself, but he is never able to find them.

— Richard Le Gallienne

You can't be a critic by simply being a griper. One has also to search out the examples of good work.

— Wendell Berry

He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.

— Anonymous

Look, I'm my own worst critic. I've made mistakes in areas that I need to improve - most notably, turning the ball…

— Philip Rivers

Be patient and loving with yourself. You weren't meant to be your biggest critic, but your biggest fan.

— Emily Kinney

Your function as a critic is to show that it is really you yourself who should have written the book, if you…

— Stephen Potter

The lens is the actor's best critic... showing his mind more clearly than on the stage. You can get wonderful cooperation out…

— Sydney Greenstreet

The writer must be four people: 1) The nut, the obsede 2) The moron 3) The stylist 4) The critic. 1 supplies…

— Susan Sontag

In December of 2002, the late Richard Corliss, a respected movie critic with a long and illustrious career, wrote an embarrassing letter…

— Viggo Mortensen

I think to be a movie critic is troubling from one major respect. If you are forced to watch ten movies a…

— James Gray

Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what…

— Duke Ellington

Insofar as we, critics of the black tradition, master our craft, we serve both to preserve our own traditions and to shape…

— Henry Louis Gates

More negatives write than call. It's a cheap shot for me to go on the air with the critical letters or E-mail…

— John Hall

It would be so much better if the critics would come, not on first nights, but on last nights, when they could…

— Orson Welles

The critic's hankering to be law-giver rather than servant of literature is irrepressible.

— Storm Jameson

“Under-promise and over-deliver. That’s the best way to keep your inner critic in the game.”

— Kerri L. Richardson

Critics kind never mind! Critics flatter no matter! Critics blame all the same! Do your best damn the rest!

— Arthur Conan Doyle

A young critic is like a boy with a gun; he fires at every living thing he sees. He thinks only of…

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“If we all believed our first critic, nothing great would have ever been accomplished.”

— Shanna Goodman

The great critic … must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.

— W. Somerset Maugham

Artists reproduce themselves or each other, with wearisome iteration. But criticism is always moving on, and the critic is always developing.

— Oscar Wilde

My work is very much like the restaurant critic's - a number of factors come together to make for a strong review.

— Hank Stuever

As lovely as people are to me about my performance, I'm still a huge critic. I like very little of what I…

— Daniel Gillies

“Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art…

— John Steinbeck

“A social critic is someone whose work revolves around where and how our successes are failing us.”

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I'm a pretty harsh critic when it comes to my own stuff or things that come from my work.

— Michael Connelly

“The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For watching…

— E.B. White

It's certainly not helpful when the commander in chief is a critic of the intelligence community.

— James Clapper

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

— Pauline Kael

“A literary critic should have no emotions except those immediately provoked by a work of art.”

— T S Eliot

I don't pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is…

— Miles Davis

I'm a very tough critic of my guitar-playing. Sometimes I don't even want to do it anymore.

— Allan Holdsworth

A society needs famous people; the question is whom it chooses for that role. Any criticism of its choice is by implication…

— Max Frisch

If a critic doesn't think I can act, it's because I'm not acting. That's me - and that's the way I act.

— Donna Brazile

I never knew any painter worthy of the name who paid the smallest attention to what a critic says, even in conversation.

— Robert Baldwin Ross

You know, criticism began as the province of amateurs, of wealthy men who liked the arts.

— Robert Christgau

I'm my own worst critic, so I try and not focus on what I've done wrong, or what I could improve on.

— Mandy Moore