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hated the acclaimed Magnolia, which he found pretentious and hollow, “100% gradschoolish in a bad way.”
D. T. Max • Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace
“There is something essentially ridiculous about critics, anyway,” said Randall Jarrell, a pretty good critic himself. “What is good is good without our saying so, and beneath all our majesty we know this.”
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
we must never mistake criticism for art.
Robert McKee • Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting
Death, violence, and moral corruption aren't just slapstick props in these films, but agonizingly real presences, and their comedy isn't a release from horror but a confrontation with it.
Dave Kehr • When Movies Mattered: Reviews from a Transformative Decade
Criticism is not some inscrutable, mysterious process. It’s just a matter of: (1) noticing ourselves responding to a work of art, moment by moment, and (2) getting better at articulating that response.
George Saunders • A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy.
We risk very little, yet enjoy a position of those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement.
We thrive on negative criticism.
Which is fun to write and to read.
But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk, is probably more m