J. Maarten Troost Quotes

Criticism is always easier than constructive solutions.

It's not the journalists; it's the critics that I can't understand. I've never understood what kind of a person would want to criticize someone else's work.

We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favorite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers. Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections.

It's easy for people to talk about the negative.

It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.

Everybody loves to find fault, it gives a feeling of superiority.

I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself--as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand.

Expressing criticism of society is not being a grouch.

I discovered very quickly that criticism is a form of optimism, and that when you are silent about the shortcomings of your society, you're very pessimistic about that society. And it's only when you speak truthfully about it that you show your faith in that society.

Sometimes I'm very disappointed at some of the people in our family of communicators, whether it be a songwriter or a rapper that's always talking about negativity or a singer or a columnist or a network that basically gets off on just trying to create the negative.

If you want to change something by Tuesday, theater is no good. Journalism is what does that. But, if you want to just alter the chemistry of the moral matrix, then theater has a longer half-life.

Healthy, well-informed, balanced criticism is the ozone of public life.

Bad criticism has followed things like comic books or TV, and they put down a medium. A medium cannot be inherently good or bad.

Black detraction will find faults where they are not.

The Triumph of Wit is to make your good Nature subdue your Censure; to be quick in seeing Faults, and slow in exposing them. You are to consider, that the invisible thing called a Good Name, is made up of the Breath of Numbers that speak well of you; so that if by a disobliging Word you silence the meanest, the Gale will be less strong which is to bear up your Esteem.

With the advent of this kind of TMZ culture, it sadly seems to have infiltrated the vanguard of film commentary. I see these reviews sometimes where I think, well, you have a right to say whatever you want about my work, and I will listen whether it's good or bad and see if there's something that I might work with, but personal issues don't have a place in film commentary.

What I and other commentators do is attempt to move the public opinion. We try to change minds.

When I first prepared this particular talk... I realized that my usual approach is usually critical. That is, a lot of the things that I do, that most people do, are because they hate something somebody else has done, or they hate that something hasn't been done. And I realized that informed criticism has completely been done in by the web. Because the web has produced so much uninformed criticism. It's kind of a Gresham's Law-bad money drives the good money out of circulation. Bad criticism drives good criticism out of circulation. You just can't criticize anything.

One has so many more opinions about what has gone wrong than about what is perfect.

The man who acts the least, upbraids the most.

By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.

I think the media's primarily an interesting backdrop - a fertile backdrop, in which we can discuss a great deal involving the human condition. We're not trying to lecture the media on how it should be doing its job or lecture people on who they should be voting for, but it does provide an incredible backdrop on which we can paint a lot of pictures and open up a lot of discussions.

People have an actual bias against there being some kind of popularity for political films, and when they get acknowledged, it helps keep the conversation going.

I think progress is a sort of comfortable disease, and we've got a media that says entertainment and celebrity, which isn't bad in itself but it stops the real issues coming forward.

We live in a society that feeds on criticism. It is so easy to find fault, and to resist doing so requires much discipline.