James Frey Quotes

I mean my point as an artist is I'm on my own little weird journey across the sky here and whether or not anybody's listening, or listening to the degree I would like them to, at the end of the day has to be an inconsequential thing because I can't chase this culture.

I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can.

It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.

It's dangerous to think too much about how a film will be received. Filmmaking is not a popularity contest. Some would disagree.

I try to forget about the expectation that's out there and the audience listening for the next thing so that I'm not trying to please them. I've spent a huge amount of time not communicating with those folks and denying that they exist.

I never really think about what people are going to think of the movie afterwards. Or what people are going to call me. I just want to make a great project, and my focus is really all on that. And then I really don't read reviews. Like, you know, go on comment boards or anything.

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

I know I'm not gonna please everybody when I make a record. I don't let that affect any of my decisions.

I am so anti-people's opinions when I'm making a record, but when it's finished and I put it out there, I hope somebody likes it.

I've tried to be more self-sufficient as I've gotten older. I'd like to not worry about whether they're going to sell my next album or book. Hell, William Blake wasn't even published in his lifetime.

I'm not worried about what the critics say, or how they feel I should go with my career.

Nobody wants to make something that displeases people, but once you make a film, that's out of your control and you can't think about that. You just have to follow your head and make sure that you're satisfied by putting down what you intended.

I think it's harder to make a classic now, not because of what people say, but because artists now are so concerned with what people say.

Don't be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts.

People think I take some sort of masochistic pleasure out of putting out music that's gonna be unpopular.

I work so I don't need to make rent through my songs, and I think if more people engaged with music without needing it to provide for their welfare, you're not beholden to anyone.

I don't read reviews, There's no value for me in reading them. Whether they're good or bad, they'll just make me self-conscious.

If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie.

I believe that a creative career is only as good as the risks that you take with it.

I'll have periods when I write and periods when I don't. But you don't want it to become a discipline, really. If it becomes a discipline, it becomes a chore, and that's no good. To make art you need to be inspired.

We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie.

Criticism is something that you have to take, regardless of what you do. Even if you go out there and try to make the most vanilla, non-offensive TV show possible, people are going to criticize you for doing that. It's just part of the game.

If art is singular expression, then by nature, the best art is controversial. But when art stirs debate for reasons besides its artistic integrity, that's when things get bent.

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

I think that our goal in Good Charlotte is just to be Good Charlotte, and whatever happens, whatever that means, we don't even know, and make music and whatever.