Quotes About Self-critique

I really judge me on me.

I haven't even read everything I wrote.

Being a swimsuit model that talks so much on Twitter... everyone thinks that I could definitely pull back. You kind of open yourself up to all the criticism. That's definitely a big downside to this whole world. How can you complain about people critiquing your body when you're literally like, 'Look at my body!'

It's a maddening thing in itself to look at an old poem of yours. To translate it is even more maddening.

Sometimes I feel like you can toot your own trumpet too much. I don't really like that.

I think anyone who makes products has this simultaneous joy and, almost, shame looking at it. You look at it all day and all you can see is all these things you want to make better.

Every time I listen back to solos of mine I'll hear something I like and then another phrase that I can't stand. You have to live with what you play. And the recording medium puts that on us. When I play live gigs I don't think so much like that.

I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. I avoided this punishment by destroying them, I thought, and suddenly I took great pleasure in the word destroying.

I'd always cared extremely little for public opinion because I was always obsessed with my own opinion and hence had no time at all for the public's.

Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people.

I like watching the other actors, but the hard thing about watching yourself is that the performance is done, and no matter how you'd like to tweak it, there's nothing you can do.

The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.

So when I go home, sometimes, even when I had an amazing game, I always think about what I missed.

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

The United States, being a strong and wealthy society, and with unrivaled global influence, invites envy. The success of its restless culture of freedom, constitutional democracy, self-critique, secular rationalism, and open markets provokes the resentment of both weaker and less-secure theocracy and autocracy alike.

I think that Undertaker, more than anybody in the industry, looks at his performance every single night, and no matter how good it is, even if it's perfect and sees it, that it could have been a little bit better. He's one of those guys.

Thou hast given a right judgment, but why judge thou not thyself also?

Writing by myself, I spread that out more. I'll spend more time on a song then. I'm more critical about it, because there's no one else in the room to tell me, 'That's really not translating. I'm not getting what you're saying.' So, I'm constantly rewriting it, thinking, 'No, that's fine,' and going back.

I wrote about 22 plays before 'When You Cure Me,' which was staged in 2005. I occasionally get them out and have a read, thinking maybe there's a thought or an idea or even a turn of phrase that I could use for something new. There's not. They're dire.

No manager in the world gets good results all the time and you know there's people always ready to have a snipe. In fact I'm my own biggest critic, I really am. Because my own standards are so high, I criticise myself behind the scenes more than perhaps I should, according to people who know me well.

So when I go home, sometimes, even when I had an amazing game, I always think about what I missed.

I don't think the roles that I'm necessarily known for in this country are my best work, or even anywhere near it. I didn't think I was great in 'Arcadia.' I think it's a great part and a great play and had a lot of attention.

Never stop training, no matter what level you're at. Never, ever stop putting your talent under a microscope and asking, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah - I'm doing all this stuff right, but what's wrong with my acting?'

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ( Casual Chance , 1964)