Billy Wilder Quotes

I don't think you should criticize people's music because maybe it just isn't for you.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

We'd rather see a picture that we liked then dump on one we didn't.

I love art, but I'm not an academic; I just like what I like.

Ultimately, taste is so niche and so personal.

Wine is similar to music in that it's a purely experiential realm, and it's a purely subjective practice. That's sort of the funny thing about wine criticism or, for that matter, music criticism. At times, those are useful guides, but ultimately it's all about how you react to that music or wine.

... as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the ideal library is in the wish of its maker.

Acting, music, painting... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all.

People make great films. I just don't have the eyes to watch them.

Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking it; the more improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that ultimate, test.

No one can tell me what is a good cigar - for me. I am the only judge. People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the world. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house.

To appreciate a work of art, is it okay to like what you like, and the heck with the art critics and experts? Absolutely.

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.

I like what I like and not what I'm supposed to like because of mass rating. And I very much dislike the things I don't like.

I have my own tastes and I have my my own... like, I dunno. I think it's really subjective; something that I think is a great song, is unlistenable to somebody else, which I've come to realise.

I would say that if something has an aesthetic value and it is pleasing to watch or to wear, it may in fact have nothing to do with status symbol. You just like to wear it.

Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible.

We all have the people we follow on Tumblr whose opinions or taste we respect. And I think because you see so much more variety of opinions and everything on the internet, it's less decided that something is good or bad. It's more like we all just sort of like what we like.

"Taste is not only a part and index of morality, it is the only morality. The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature is "What do you like?" Tell me what you like, I'll tell you what you are."

I have only one reader - me. I'm the average reader. If I like it, that's all I worry about.

You like some things, you don't like others. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the others, it just means you have an opinion.

I don't know if it's art, but I know I like it.

taste governs every free - as opposed to rote - human response. Nothing is more decisive. There is taste in people, visual taste, taste in emotion - and there is taste in acts, taste in morality. Intelligence, as well, is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas.

In our democratic culture people often think it is threatening to judge another person's taste. Some are even offended by the suggestion that there is a difference between good and bad taste, or that it matters what you look at or read or listen to.

There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules.