Irwin Shaw Quotes

With all of my films if I get one bad review and a bunch of good reviews the bad one is the only one that will stay with me, which really sucks!

I have forgotten my rave reviews and memorized my vicious ones - like most writers.

When people compliment me, I don't put much meaning into them, but when they say bad things, I take them too seriously. I try to fix this mentality, but it's hard.

I didn't want to play these people any more songs and have them say that they weren't good enough. So my response was to just not be able to write anymore. I know that's not the healthiest of responses.

I'm probably my own harshest critic. If I get a hundred good reviews and one really bad one, it's that one out of a hundred that I remember. I think we actors are hard on ourselves, and I don't know why that is.

It's hard not to let criticism make you feel bad about yourself - I do continue to struggle with that as an older woman in the workplace.

I've built up such a thick skin. It's very easy to take one comment - whether it be a really mean comment that digs deep or just something rude - and really run with it. It's so easy: if there are 100 comments, and 99 are nice, you just run with the bad one.

A lot of things that were written about me bothered me, like my mentality was not good.

This weird thing that musicians have... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid.

I've never been super confident about anything. The work is never as good as it could be.

Writing is exhilarating, but reading reviews is not. I've been really devastated by 'good' reviews because they misunderstand the project of the book. It can be strangely galvanising to get a 'bad' one.

Somehow I took whatever criticism there was very much to heart.

I work really hard at these books, and when colleagues write nasty reviews of them, I take it very personally.

I never read my reviews... not even the good ones. Barbra Streisand once told me, if just one person in the audience doesn't applaud, it bothers her. I'm the same way. I'd be devastated to read that someone didn't like my work.

I want to be good all the time, so I feel anxious. But if you weren't like that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? If you went out happy down the road, la la la. I've never been like that. I don't want to be.

That's something I go through every day - you know - Am I good enough to act?

I'm probably my biggest critic. I worry that if you spend any quality time reveling in good things then karma will slap you upside the head, so I try to stay as even keel as I'm able.

I criticise myself an awful lot. I do worry to the point that I don't think it's very healthy. I'm always picking my flaws. It's a terrible anxiety I have. I wish I could pretend nothing fazes me, but it does.

The bad reviews get to me, believe me.

Since I got a really bad review when I was, like, 28 in 'The New York Times,' I don't read reviews anymore.

I stay off the Internet, because I'm very sensitive to commentary. There could be 10 comments of 'Fabulous job!' and one 'She's horrible!' and it completely throws me.

I don't know many artists who are happy with themselves all of the time.

As an actor, it easy to be so self-critical, saying to yourself, 'Am I good enough? Am I good looking enough? Am I smart enough?'

If you go to an elite school where the other students in your class are all really brilliant, you run the risk of mistakenly believing yourself to not be a good student.

There are a lot of people who give you the message that maybe you are not good enough, and the best thing you can do for yourself is to block out all of that noise.