Public Reception Quotes

I don't know if a song is going to be a hit or it's going to flop. I never know. I just do the music and if people like it, they like it.

When you're releasing an album, you never know how it's going to go. You never know how a critic is going to receive it or how much it's going to sell.

When you work on an album for three and a half years, you're kind of ready for it to get out there. To have your songs reach people.

We've been fairly eclectic in our time, and we did branch out. Whenever we got a little bit too far out, people started to moan and groan a bit.

Every time I do a movie, I think it's going to be a huge hit.

My worst fear is my music won't connect with the public.

A work of art does not need an explanation. The work has to speak for itself. The work may be subject to many interpretations, but only one was in the mind of the artist. Some artists say to make the work readable for the public is an artist’s responsibility, but I don’t agree with that. The only responsibility to be absolutely truthful to the self. My work disturbs people and nobody wants to be disturbed They are not fully aware of the effect my work has on them, but they know it is disturbing.

Most of the time when you do a job, a play or a film, you're wondering, "Will there be an audience?"

I was always flattered, but I just want my movies to make money. I want to be commercial. I'm never the person who says, "I don't care if people don't see my movies." I always want people to see my movies.

Writers are egotists. All artists are. They can’t be altruists and get their work done. And writers love to whine about the Solitude of the Author’s Life, and lock themselves into cork-lined rooms or droop around in bars in order to whine better. But although most writing is done in solitude, I believe that it is done, like all the arts, for an audience. That is to say, with an audience. All the arts are performance arts, only some of them are sneakier about it than others.

I think commercial success is really important. It means there are more people listening, and you're affecting the zeitgeist more. If only a hundred people know you exist, it's harder to get your message across.

As I look back, I understand what [the record company] was getting at. They were trying to market a record and make it as commercially acceptable as possible. It hurt me and my credibility with critics.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don't worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made 'Three O' Clock Blues,' they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I'm trying to satisfy.

In New York and L.A., there is sort of that silent competition to be on the cutting edge of something. You end up having a conversation with how the world receives your work, especially if you are writing narrative, not fiction. Sometimes it is an awkward conversation. It's like group therapy.

If President Trump were to say, 'I'm going to go to San Juan to see that nasty mayor,' I would receive him with open arms because democracy is larger than me.

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 want all my films to do well.

I like it if people enjoy what I'm doing, but if they don't, I also like it. I sometimes really like aggravating people with what I do. I think it's good for them.

When my first album came out, it wasn't Bollywood. The love that I received from people was everything, and it still is everything for me.

I'm in an odd place right now in New York where I routinely get trashed by every daily drama critic and have a few allies among weekly/monthly drama critics, and you sort of plot these things out and figure it out. But it's just what any writer goes through, periods of favor, periods of disfavor. And the trick is just to keep writing and to not let an obsession.

The media is going to stick a label on records. And the public is going to pick it up from that. And that's what I was getting sick of-the whole analyzation thing.

Every piece of entertainment is made with the idea that 'This is going to be terrific' and 'This is the best thing I've ever done' and then it hits the public and then the public tells you whether it's good or bad.

I became tired of submitting my art to a panel of corporate strategists who decide if it meets their standard of what gets into stores or not. It was quite simple for me: they act like judge and jury of my art, and that is unacceptable. I wanted to give it right to the public.

We don't do movies for the industry. We do movies for the fans, for the people. If the industry give you a trophy or not, or pat you on the back or not, it's nice, but it's not something you should dwell on.

Now you see, Dr. Stadler, you're speaking as if this book were addressing to a thinking audience. If it were, one would have to be concerned with such matters as accuracy, validity, logic and the prestige of science. But it isn't. It's addressed to the public.