Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions they pass no criticisms.

Egypt has been a partner of the United States over the last 30 years has been instrumental in keeping the peace in the Middle East between Egypt and Israel which is a critical accomplishment that has meant so much to so many people.

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.

In every society in human history including the United States those in power seek to imbue themselves with the attributes of religion and patriotism as a way of getting greater support for their policy and insulating themselves from any criticism.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism and find criticism subversive.

There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical questioning and often angry patriotism.

We criticize mothers for closeness. We criticize fathers for distance. How many of us have expected less from our fathers and appreciated what they gave us more? How many of us always let them off the hook?

Nature when she invented manufactured and patented her authors contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

My music appeals in America. There is less of the purist criticism I get here. And to be a hit in the U.S... what singer doesn't have that dream?

Music is emotional and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.

I always think I'm the Tom Cruise of music - a lot of success and fans but no critics darling.

The ideology of the Smashing Pumpkins was ultimately more valuable than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's what critics can't put their finger on.

What we don't need in country music is divisiveness public criticism of each other and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn't.

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.

Movies are hard work. The public doesn't see that. The critics don't see it. But they're a lot of work. A lot of work.

Critics can be harsh and I think it's going to take me a long time to make people see what I have inside of me and that I really put my guts into movies and that I'm not superficial and that I'm not just a pretty face.

I don't want to criticize any other designers but I have to say that many of the people involved in this industry - directors and producers - are trying to make their games more like movies. They are longing to make movies rather than making videogames.

I was up watching Meet Joe Black at four AM. I was hoping Brad Pitt would die and he was still alive at seven forty in the morning! I actually felt sorry for once for critics.

What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism.

Early in the morning I fell in love with the girl that later on became my wife. At that time we were so naive. I wanted to charm her so I read her Capital by Marx. I thought somehow she would be convinced by the strength of his criticism about capital.

There are two kinds of power you have to fight. The first is the money and that's just our system. The other is the people close around you knowing when to accept their criticism knowing when to say no.

The money can be a hindrance to someone like me because the danger is that you start thinking 'Is that a $20 million take?' That kind of thing and being self-critical.