Critic Role Quotes

Picture this scene. A critic arrives at the gates of heaven. 'And what did you do?' asks Saint Peter. 'Well', says the dead soul. 'I criticised things'. 'I beg your pardon?' 'You know, other people wrote things, performed things, painted things and I said stuff like, "thin and unconvincing", "turgid and uninspired", "competent and serviceable,"...you know'.

Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people's compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work?

A book reviewer is usually a barker before the door of a publisher's circus.

A critic at best is a waiter at the great table of literature.

A critic who uses new quotations is making important changes.

With the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth... the critic

While in some quarters it is felt that the critic is just a necessary evil, most serious-minded, decent, talented theater people agree that the critic is an unnecessary evil.

There's an enormous difference between being a critic and a reviewer. The reviewer reacts to the experience of that book.

Critics should be to actors what ornithologists are to birds: they can write all they want, but it shouldn't affect them.

A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn't like.

I would hate to think of the theatre world without critics. Without them, we'd not have the record of each season.

On the whole, however, the critic is far less of a professional faultfinder than is sometimes imagined. He is first of all a virtue-finder, a singer of praise. He is not concerned with getting rid of dross except in so far as it hides the gold. In other words, the destructive side of criticism is purely a subsidiary affair. None of the best critics have been men of destructive minds. They are like gardeners whose business is more with the flowers than with the weeds.

A critic is a soldier that fires on his own men.

Writers are lampposts and critics are dogs. Ask lampposts what they think about dogs. Does the dog hurt the lamppost?

My father was an engineer, .. But I found out that the film critics for the Stanford Daily got free passes for all the films. So I became first an assistant critic and then the main film critic. Those free passes changed my life.

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

It's a lot more fun being a critic than being the one criticized.

I always tell people that they are really the critics. If people come three times a week to your restaurant they are the ones who find something they really love.

We have a funny sort of love/hate relationship with critics because, unfortunately, in the art/commerce dance that we do, they drive people to the restaurant. Regardless of sometimes how well we prepare the food, if people don't know that we're out there, if someone isn't talking about us, you guys aren't coming.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

Also, many consumers consider a critic to be like God Almighty.

A critic is a lug-worm in the liver of literature.

I don't even know what a serious literary critic is.

I'm not a critic, and I never talk about other people's work.