Wesley Morris Quotes

What is needed in the theater, in fact for all our art forms, is a vibrant critical tradition.

There's some people who are not understanding what Limp Bizkit is about. But, then again, who am I to tell people what they can use art for or how they can interpret it?

The first time you listen to someone else's interpretation of what you've created, it's a little unnerving. They'll change lyrics or something almost every time. That's them being an artist, and you appreciate it more over time.

The need to look behind the curtain is great for a filmmaker. But whether you want to deconstruct what you like as a viewer, what you like and don't like, I wish we could let films stand on their own a little bit.

What I've really liked doing is combining what you might call art criticism or music criticism with something that is happening in real life.

It's difficult sometimes to go and see a show and enjoy it and not go and see a show and critique it.

To me, there's a huge difference between criticism and reviewing. I really love reading good criticism of television and film. To me, a critic is someone who analyzes a show, describes it, talks about the people in it, puts it in historical context of other shows like it, compares it and stuff, and then talks about the intent of the show and whether it failed or didn't.

The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that minister to it is one of the highest distinctions... In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of the artist, a torchbearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother... Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument.

I get a great laugh from artists who ridicule the critics as parasites and artists manqués — sucha horrible joke. I can’t imagine a more perfect art form, a moreperfect career than criticism. I can’t imagine anything more valuableto do.

The funny thing is musicians often love to go to see visual art because you've got all these pictures to turn into metaphors.

I think that the first part of the art is making the art, but when art really becomes art is when it belongs to somebody else.

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

You don't have to know anything about art to appreciate it or to look at it. There aren't any hidden secrets or things that you're supposed to understand.

Part of being an artist is being able to write about the world you live in and the times that you've been a part of.

I make it a habit of never trying to judge what an audience might think, only because all points of view are too close, because we're doing it every day, I think that the actor's point of view is sometimes too close to what the material actually is.

If music was made by some kind of critical theorist, it would sound like my music.

I think literary theory satisfied a deep love I have for big, encompassing narratives about the world and how it works - which are usually, in the end, more creative visions unto themselves than illuminating explanations.

Music is very abstract. When we talk about music, we're not discussing the music itself but rather how we react to it.

I'm not really going to defend anyone's lyrics.

I think art always comments on the time and place it was created.

I tried without much success to learn a little of the humanities and the arts, but even passing the courses in art history and music history was a challenge.

I think it's really hard to describe music without alienating somebody.

I feel it's my job as the artist who is making the music to pair it with visuals that I see in my head while writing the music in the first place.

It's not my job to tell people what a work means.