Superficial Analysis Quotes

An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply

Intellectual labor is a common technique for the avoidance of thinking.

A lot of critics are lazy. They don't want to look closely and analyze something for what it is. They take a quick first impression and then rush to compare it to something they've seen before.

Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from on high instead of studying and understanding things from within.

Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre [journalists]

If you look at how people use the term 'western,' you can only conclude that it means a movie that has big hats and horses. And if you really want to sound like you've been thinking, then you'll use a term like 'genre.' But all the hell it seems to mean is big hats and horses. Which is not all that deeply analytical.

Your criticism sounds to me as if you have read too many critical books and are too smart in an artificial, destructive, and very limited way.

People take things at face value on social media. Earnestness is the assumption.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with.

I think that a lot of journalists don't really listen to music before they review it.

If rehearsed eye-rolls and sneers and armchair psychology worked, and were interesting, Fox wouldn't be number one.

No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty and superficial view of the subject.

The speeding reader guts a book the way the skillful clean fish. The gills are gone, the tail, the scales, the fins; then the fillet slides away swifly as though fed to a seal.

Sometimes people talk about music, whether blogs or magazines, in a strange way where it doesn't seem like they're actually listening to it.

Certainly when you read someone's diary [ superficial] that's a word that jumps to mind.

For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.

I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.

Cynics know the answers without having penetrated deeply enough to know the questions. When challenged by mysterious truths, they marshall 'facts.

Tennis analyst is the easiest job in the world because whatever the person does, if it works you just say that's what's good, and if it doesn't work, you guys go, 'He should have done the other things.'.It just doesn't take much thought. If I'm grinding and I'm winning, you guys are like, 'He's reinvented himself.' If I'm playing like crap and pushing, then, you know, 'He's horrible and he needs to hit the ball.'