I don’t think Donald Barthelme would have minded being called a confusing writer. Confusion was a favorite subject for him in his essays and reviews, and it’s enacted in his fiction in a mishmash of dizzying incongruities.
If you make a good show, you tend to get good reviews. I don’t believe it is as arbitrary as some people tend to think, which artists do to protect themselves against bad reviews.
I don’t generally read reviews.
It is true that some people are interested in the buying part of things… They want to buy everything from the movie reviews to the media net to the opinions and so on.
I’m thinking of sending out censorship packets: information to share with those who want to defend my books when they come under fire. I’ll tell why I wrote them and include reviews and letters of support from children and their parents.
I don’t go online, I don’t read reviews, I try not to look at anything on the Internet.
It’s a different era. I understand what Charles Barkley was saying but you just can’t take guys out. There’s too much scrutiny. There’s too many replays and reviews, and cameras everywhere.
I don’t read my reviews, but I have a bunch of them and I will when I’m 80.
I don’t like to read reviews.
It’s funny, because ‘1600 Penn’ was the first time I really started to read the reviews, because I am an executive producer and I wanted to see what people were enjoying and not enjoying as a means to an end, right?
In the case of ‘Goon Squad,’ which sold slowly for a long time despite the good reviews, those ‘best of 2010’ lists were pivotal, and made the book really sell.
I’m the world’s worst at reading reviews and then pretending I’ve read the book.
In general, I’ve been treated well by reviews, and there are times when I haven’t. The truth is that I’ve come to feel like I’m better off without reading them.
Now everyone takes it for granted that you can look up movie reviews, track locations, and order stuff online. I wish there was a way we could take it away from people for a day so they could remember what it was like without it.
If you receive a whole string of bad reviews, you have to say, ‘O.K., maybe there’s something here we should pay attention to.’
You see, I read reviews of people like Paul Simon, and they don’t talk about the fact that he’s looking old or whether he is fashionable; they talk about the music, which is how it should be.
Reviews don’t bother me.
I don’t expect anything from reviews. Sometimes I am bemused by them.
Because I don’t give the studios advanced quotes or an advanced look at my reviews. I think the readers deserve to read my reviews before the studios do.
I never read reviews – I never have. I’ve never read message boards, either. I’m just not interested in it in any way – I’m not interested in it inflating my ego, and I’m not interested in it improving my self-worth. So, I don’t read them.
I love Walter Mosley and Robert Parker crime novels. And I read a lot of music reviews.
I sometimes think many reviewers write the reviews of my films even before they see them.
Every year I tell myself that I’m not going to read any reviews and then I do. We’re all human and when I read something negative it hurts. I think when you write it’s part of the game, you’re going to get some good reviews and some bad reviews and that’s how it goes. I don’t write for the reviews.
For something to be profitable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best thing in the world for the director. You judge a movie by different standards – I’ve worked on comedies, and now I’ve worked on superhero movies, and the reviews are almost parenthetical in both of those genres.
I generally read everything about me. Based on my army experience, I think it’s the right thing to do. Saddam Hussein didn’t read his reviews and thought he was winning the war.
I’m so used to bad reviews. I really enjoy them when they’re very mean!
I think especially in academia, we are coached to go the route of paying to submit our writing to small publications, like the presses and the quarterly reviews and all of these that are considered ‘prestigious.’ As a writer in a college program, that’s the route that you’re taught to go.
I don’t read reviews because by then it’s too late – whatever anyone says, the book won’t change. It is written.
Book reviews have never helped me. Most of them erred in their interpretations and their work has been a waste of time.
I don’t read any reviews, so I’m oblivious to what they have to say. I’m completely unaware. It’s fantastic.
I just don’t read reviews, because it can really hurt you.
I think that I’ve got some pretty bad reviews on albums or songs that later proved themselves.
Prior to ‘The Goldbergs,’ I rarely got good reviews on anything I’ve done.
I don’t read the reviews, the blogs, or anything else. Instead, I feel the audience when I show the film.
I don’t generally do movies that get good reviews.
I never read reviews. I’m not interested. But I value a lot the reactions of the spectators.
The worse the reviews, the better for our demographic.
I always separate myself from reviews, but tweets and Instagram comments, they go directly to my phone. It’s hard to keep up.
What surprised me most about fame is how unpleasant it can be. I used to think it was going to be so fun. I got excited about the parties. You don’t anticipate friends being jealous of you and critics giving your music bad reviews. Media and rumors – that stuff hurts.
I’m one of those directors who read reviews, even if they’re bad, because I started as a film critic as a cinema student. I indulge in the art of criticism in general.
Generally, there’s a correlation between good work and good reviews. In the very odd, very rare case that they say it’s terrible, but actually you’re a genius who is ahead of your time, you are going to just have to suffer.
As a filmmaker when you show your film to anybody, you want it to be liked. You want the reviews to be positive. After watching your film, you want people to feel good.
As a producer, the most important call you can get is on Saturday morning, when the Friday-night grosses come in. As a director, you want your film to be successful. But your outlook is a bit different. You become very conscious of the reviews.
I’ve sold a lot of records. I’ve sold, like, 150 million records, and I don’t think I’ve had that many good reviews. It’s one of those things that when you’re really successful, critics hate you just because you’re successful.
Critics always get the lyrics wrong in reviews, which is amusing – especially when they use them against you.
At one level, an award is an endorsement, a confirmation, but I always find myself looking askance at awards and good reviews, as though another Garry Disher had earned them.
I believe that music is about making quality things, making quality art, and no matter who you decide to work with, you and that person have to come up with something special, come up with something that is excellent material, so whoever hears it and reviews it will like it.
The power of the print reviewer is one of those urban myths. There have always been shows that slipped under the critical radar to become popular successes: ‘Tobacco Road’, ‘Abie’s Irish Rose’ and our old friend ‘Spider-Man’, which got the worst reviews in theatre history and is still apparently going strong.
Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped with strong words.
My predecessors in this business of acting were fully convinced their work would never be recorded, except in the form of reviews or paintings.
I worked at ‘Mademoiselle,’ and then it shut, and I worked at ‘GQ’ for three years, during which I was freelancing. I wrote for ‘Vibe.’ I did music reviews. I wrote for ‘Time Out.’ I was desperate to get into ‘Entertainment Weekly’ or ‘New York Magazine.’ Like, desperate.
When you hire that first person, then you’re a boss. You’ve got performance reviews. You’ve got complaints about not making enough money. You’ve got people who are just going to sell your story to the tabloids.
I don’t think it’s useful for somebody to argue with reviews.
I used to write reviews for ‘Artbomb.’ Our policy was to only cover books we loved and recommended.
I don’t read my own reviews and I haven’t for probably 15 years. I read other people’s reviews, though.
I don’t read reviews, because if you believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad.
It’s a very strange thing to suddenly be approached in the street and have streams of messages, and not know how to work through getting bad reviews and hate comments. It’s something that can really weigh on the mind and be quite isolating.
I don’t really read reviews… That’s not where my attention goes.
When you read reviews on Yelp, you get a good sense of what’s going to happen when you walk in the door of that business. The challenge is that there are fifteen million businesses in the U.S., and its very hard to communicate with all of them about how Yelp works, and why it works the way it does.
I was afraid the other musicians might want to present themselves too much, though I see in the coverage I’ve received of the album that the musicians got wonderful reviews for their contributions and abilities. I think the four musicians played freely within my limits.
