Quotes About Criticism

Your humble critic confesses that he has been wrestling with 'weight issues' since leaving college lo these, uh, several years ago, so it's hard to be receptive to the moralistic scolding and patronizing encouragement offered endlessly by the allegedly well-meaning.

I've been worked over by the English press because there's an assumption that my politics are identical with my wife's, and for that matter that my wife's politics are identical with her politics of 20 years ago.

So this guy, Jeff Johnson, who is an accountant who cares nothing at all about a free press and cares nothing about journalism, he's a right winger who supported the war, you know, who two years ago told people he couldn't stand a word that I wrote.

For years and years, I was beset with snide remarks by certain members of the press, where they would turn John Oates into a joke, or they would trivialize what I do, which never really bothered me all that much.

Recently I made the mistake of opening a bundle of reviews that someone had sent me of a production from years and years ago, and someone had written a really lovely review except that it made a remark about the way I spoke: 'A lot of people find her voice terribly irritating.' Do they? I had no idea.

I find it baffling that for years and years I got tremendous stick for the amount of money I earned.

You can say what you want about me. You can yell at me with a video camera and be TMZ. You can follow me around and take pictures all you want. I don't care.

People don't yell nasty things at actors - they let them continue.

If you do this, you're going to have some heartaches from it. You're going to have people yelling at you or maybe screaming at you or criticizing you, but I think it's the best way to sell a superior chicken.

When 'Carmen' premiered in 1875, it was panned by the critics. It survived 45 performances. It was called a musical and moral outrage. After Bizet died, at age 37, 'Carmen' became wildly popular. If you believe in your creation, and the rest of the world is laughing or yelling 'Boo,' don't give up.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you're making a mistake but let you go on with it, that's when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

I stand by it. I take the criticism for it. I think it's unfair, but yes, there is a thing about nepotism, and we all try to respect it.

Yes, some people say to me you're too skinny, but never a skinny person says that to me, only people who could lose a few pounds say that.

If I'm only defined by my sport, I really have failed. Yes, I've opened myself up for more criticism, but I'm a professional athlete. I get criticised every week. I'm used to it. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, but you get used to it.

Yes, obviously goalkeepers do the same training sessions and know about things - they are the only ones who can speak about being a goalkeeper because they have done the job and experienced it and know what it is like to make an error and be criticised.

Yes, everybody has bullied me. They kept saying I was nasal and what not.

Books of yesterday are often criticised as offering an unrealistic Pollyanna view of the world. But the grim 'realities' we are forcing on today's children seem to have been written with no higher purpose in mind than teaching cynicism and distrust.

Yoga in America is a joke.

In 2003, I wrote a New York Times best-seller called 'Shut Up & Sing,' in which I criticized celebrities like the Dixie Chicks & Barbra Streisand who were trashing then-President George W. Bush. I have used a variation of that title for more than 15 years to respond to performers who sound off on politics.

Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

As I was coming up on the stage, there was one source that could make or break you, the New York Times. Inevitably there would be one actor singled out for a better review, or worse, than somebody else. The effect of that was cancerous, divisive.

If I had to name my favorite media personality, it would be a tie between Jon Stewart and Trey Parker/Matt Stone. Honest, wise, funny, and right. Sam Sifton was right up there when he was writing food criticism for the 'New York Times.'

I don't mind other guys seeing movies I want to see and then writing about them. That's fine, especially when it's the New Yorker's Anthony Lane, because he knows this stuff pretty well.

During the time I didn't play for England, they were losing Test matches, and the Yorkshire committee were telling me that I should be batting for my country. Then, when I decided to make myself available to play for England again in 1977, and Yorkshire lost a couple of matches in my absence, they criticised me for not being there.