John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

I don't care what people say about me.

I'm not afraid of criticism or what somebody may think.

When people direct insults at me, I can take it.

Honestly, if the worst these people can say about me is that I'm gay, then I think I'll be fine. I can handle it.

You may be as vicious about me as you please. You will only do me justice.

I know all the critics.

Reviews don't bother me.

You can't worry about what other people say, honestly.

I have a very thick skin. I take everything that comes and let it bounce right off me because I know the time will come when nobody will be able to speak falsely.

No man ever distinguished himself who could not bear to be laughed at.

You've got to be ready for everything. When it comes to everyone's opinion, that's what you've got to go through.

I don't care about convincing the people who think I'm naive or an idiot.

But, Polly, a principle that can't bear being laughed at, frowned on, and cold-shouldered, isn't worthy of the name.

Sometimes people will find things that are wrong. Sometimes they will even find an approach that you took wrong. If you think you took the right approach, then you just absorb the criticism, but you don't change your mind.

Hard times build determination and inner strength. Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger. Instead of getting angry nurture a deep caring and respect for troublemakers because by creating such trying circumstances they provide us with invaluable opportunities to practice tolerance and patience.

Show people your stuff, listen carefully to their responses, but ultimately don't value anyone's opinion above your own. Be influenced by writers you dislike as well as writers you like. Read their stuff to figure out what's wrong. Find a balance between the confidence that allows you continue, and the self-critical facility that enables you to improve. Get the balance wrong on either side, and you're screwed.

If people don't like you, or they think you're strange, then that's their problem.

Approval isn’t necessary. It’s nice when you get it, but it’s not going to stop us from being who we are. I mean, if I’d have listened to approval, I’d never have made it one day onstage. But to be criticized, if there’s validity, as upset as you are, you can learn from it.

Always shun whatever may make you angry.

Have confidence in your decisions. Make them expeditiously, and stay with them as long as you believe you are correct no matter what others say. However, when you conclude you were in error, do not hesitate to announce the error publicly and change course.

You may not be able to convince everyone around you that you're doing the right thing, but you don't have to subject yourself to endless second-guessing from others, either.

If I am hated at Barcelona, it is their problem but not mine. Fear is not a word in my football dictionary.

I’ve been thrashed by the critics. I love having critics for breakfast. I’ve been having them for 30 years in Mexico - just eating them like chicken and then throwing the bones away. They have not survived, I have!

I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.