Stephen Spender Quotes

The audience is my hardest and best critic.

If you look at our world, it's a world of critique.

I don't delve too deep into reviews.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

I love reviews. Anybody who tells you they don't read reviews is a liar.

If you judge, investigate.

I think naturally you want to judge things.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

But the truth is that critics are by definition critical. That's their job.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

If you would judge, understand.

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

The present time, together with the past, shall be judged by a great jovialist.

The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.

For the critic, the word 'best' is like a grenade without a pin: Toss it around too freely, and you're likely to get your hand blown off.

I know all the critics.

I have nine armchairs from which I can be critical.

I don't control the movies that are offered to me, but I make choices based on certain parameters.

My policy is to not read any reviews.

I love getting people's opinion of what I'm doing.

It's not the quantity of your decisions; it's the quality.

Critics matter to me.

Criticism is, or ought to be, a judicious act.

We are not responding to this instant if we are judging any aspect of it.