Quotes

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Here are some amusing quotes on music critics and criticism...

"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car"
Kenneth Tynan

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem . They're there every night,they see it done every night ,they see how it should be done every night ,but they can't do it themselves."
Brendan Behan

"A critic is a legless man who teaches running"
Channing Pollock

"I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting of Goya"
Igor Stravinsky

"A statue has never been set up in honour of a critic."
Jean Sibelius

"The trouble with music critics is that so often they have the score in their hands and not in their heads."
Sir Thomas Beecham

"Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together."
Mel Brooks

[King Stephen]

Originally posted by spaceray:
Here are some amusing quotes on music critics and criticism...

"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car"
Kenneth Tynan

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem . They're there every night,they see it done every night ,they see how it should be done every night ,but they can't do it themselves."
Brendan Behan

"A critic is a legless man who teaches running"
Channing Pollock

"I had another dream the other day about music critics. They were small rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a painting of Goya"
Igor Stravinsky

"A statue has never been set up in honour of a critic."
Jean Sibelius

"The trouble with music critics is that so often they have the score in their hands and not in their heads."
Sir Thomas Beecham

"Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together."
Mel Brooks

This post was a positive delight to read. Many thanks Space.
KS

[spaceray]

May it please your Majesty,here's one by Anon.
"A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't."

Here's one for Gurn,
"Most string quartets have a basement and an attic,and the lift is not working."
Neville Cardus

[atserriotserri]

My young brother is a critic (I remember his first week on the newspaper, everyone was shocked because he actually read the books, listens the cds, choses works form people he knows or knows his style, movement, artists related... and said what a bunch of *#@_ing &%$holes). I sent him this quotes:


Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
Samuel Johnson

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.
William Faulkner


As soon
Seek roses in December, ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"


Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. ~John Osborne, Time, 31 October 1977

[Joy]

Thanks for the many laughs this morning, Space!!

------------------
'Truth and beauty joined'

[spaceray]

Here's a couple more...
"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist."
G K Chesterton

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
Stravinsky

"Nothing from Mozart?"
Sir Thomas Beecham on hearing his 70th birthday telegrams

"Do I send you MY works to look at?"
Saint-Saens returning unsolicited compositions.