1,290 Quotes About Criticism

I became an artist because I wanted to be an active participant in the conversation about art.

At the end of the day, what is life? A beautiful journey. Why must we take it so seriously and not enjoy every moment of it? Why not let any person have his chance in anything he desires? ...Why not vanish the hate and forgive? Why not follow our dreams and make them reality?

The popular distinction between 'constructive' and 'destructive' criticism is a sentimentality: the mind too weak to perceive in what respects the bad fails is not strong enough to appreciate in what the good succeeds. To be without discrimination is to be unable to praise. The critic who lets you know that he always looks for something to like in works he discusses is not telling you anything about the works or about art; he is saying 'see what a nice person I am.

There is a common tendency to turn off one's imagination at certain points and refuse to contemplate the possibility of having to do certain things and cope with the attendant moral problems. The things simply get done by the social machine, and one can keep one's clear conscience and one's moral indignation unsullied.

Why did they insulate us from criticism? Why didn't they load us up with useful tools? Why didn't they teach us to satisfy an audience? I realized I had been scammed. They wanted us to feel as good as possible for as long as possible in order to get as much money out of us as they could. The way to do that was to assure us we were already geniuses.

Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.

We earn the respect of our peers by laboring to quell our critics’ justified disapproval. We earn self-respectability by schooling the wisdom to ignore unfair condemnation. We learn goodness by witnessing other person’s lives and by performing unsolicited acts of kindnesses.

Sometimes people are shocked by what I do, but I'm not trying to be liked, I speak my mind and I don't care what people think. I truly do not compromise on who I am.

Today's mockery is tomorrow's applause.