Quotes About Self-critique

When you point your finger at someone, anyone, it is often a moment of judgement. We point our fingers when we want to scold someone, point out what they have done wrong. But each time we point, we simultaneously point three fingers back at ourselves.

Honestly, I don't listen to nobody else's music but my own. It's kind of like sports to me. You don't see Kobe Bryant at a LeBron James game - he just works on his own game. And that's what I do. I only listen to me, so I can criticize and analyze and all those things.

Every time I hear a recording I've made, I hear all kinds of things I could improve or things I should have done. There's always so much more to be done in music. It's so vast.

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.

At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself.

Sometimes I look at some of my old work and I don't like it.

When you're rereading or editing your book and you start to expect that this work is going to be reviewed, and you can sort of tell which line is going to show up in reviews.

I've always said that I myself am not the best audience for my own work, because I'm just not that receptive to comedy.

'Saw,' in many ways, was like my student film. The first crappy student film you don't really want people to see.

I don't listen to my own records a lot. Once in a while - to check out my mistakes. Because you can always see a spot or two in the record where you could have done better. So you more or less study this way.

Analysis has a way of unravelling the self: the longer you pull on the thread, the more flaws you find.

It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I'd written the story. I hadn't—I had just typed for a long time. So then I have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It's in there somewhere—but I have to find it. I'll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on.

If you write a phrase and think, 'Wow, that's really poetic, that's really pretty, I really nailed it,' you get rid of it [because] you've overdone it.

Usually, I'm over-analyzing things that have to do with my own actions.

Who is the wrong person to criticise? You

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I'm my own most vicious critic. So I'm always trying to do it better.

I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.

If you can't find any flaws about yourself, it's because you've stopped searching.

Before you open your mouth to point out someone else's flaws, take a quick look at yourself and make sure you're perfect first!

The person who is always criticizing others is usually the one who deserves criticism the most.

I can't lie: We have made some dogs over the years. Every album we did wasn't great, you know.

I evaluate myself pretty tough.

Firestone came to the conclusion that "appraisals and evaluations from others, when they validate a person's distorted view of himself, tend to arouse an obsessive thought process." Since we are already tortured by our own critical thoughts and self-attacks, we feel very threatened whenever others attack us the same way.

If I can avoid looking at myself, I will. I don't care to examine myself or see much of what I do. I never care how I look.