Quotes & Sayings About Reviews

There are two kinds of reviews: Good ones and bad ones. Within that sliding scale there are two other categories: Favorable and Unfavorable.

Of course, I hope for all Good Reviews that are also Favorable - but how likely is that? If a review isn't favorable, I just hope is well-written. — R.S. Mellette

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. — Jeremy Stoppelman

The reviews on it, and the new novel, Honky Tonk Samurai have been awesome, though I'm of the school if you believe the good ones you got to believe the bad ones, it's been mostly good ones. The previewers seem to be very happy and excited about it. I know I am. There are plans to continue if it does well. — Joe R. Lansdale

I feel reviewers are tougher on comedies in general. They don't take them seriously, and the ones that get great reviews are not necessarily the ones that I like. — Bobby Farrelly

When you do comedy, you get impervious to good and bad reviews. — Adam McKay

I believe the best reviews are any of those wherein readers share their true opinion, no matter how many stars they rate my work. When I receive responses from appreciative people thanking for useful and amusing reading, it feels like my wings stretch up and blood carries the highest happiness circulating in my veins. I think many writers will understand what I mean by that. — Sahara Sanders

I didn't read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I'm older. I read them all. — Steven Spielberg

What I do find enormously gratifying is the reviews my books get from the American press. They are so on the ball compared to anywhere else. It's so satisfying to get a review that conveys the reader understood precisely what I was trying to get at. — Kate Thompson

It may be that Tolstoy and Virginia Woolf were sitting around fretting about their Amazon reviews or their pre-pub whatever, but I kind of doubt it. I don't think that's how the work probably got made. — Garth Risk Hallberg

I've stopped going to see art films because every critic gives them four stars and say things like 'masterpiece,' 'spellbinding' and 'mesmerizing.' I mean, they're doing that with my film, but I don't want to use those blurbs. Critical reviews aren't worth too much anymore because just about every film can get one or two of them. — Terry Zwigoff

I don't read my reviews, but I have a bunch of them and I will when I'm 80. — Patricia Arquette

I don't think it's useful for somebody to argue with reviews. — Bob Woodward

[About John Updike's Rabbit Run] The author fails to convince us that his puppets are interesting in themselves, or that their plight has implications that transcend their narrow world. — Chicago Tribune

The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities that make it precious and by indicating the angle of visions from which its beauties are visible. But many critics do not realize their function. They aim not to appreciate, but to judge; they seek first to draw lines about literature and then bully readers into accepting these laws. — David Cecil

Rarely do we invest the time to open the book of another's life. When we do, we are usually surprised to find its cover so misleading and its reviews so flawed. — Richard Paul Evans

It's always good to get good reviews. I read my reviews. There are a lot of writers who don't read their reviews at all. I read them; then I put them away because it's not good to engage with them too much. — Neel Mukherjee

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change. — Jerome K. Jerome

If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it. — Ned Rorem

I love getting fan mail. Often, as a writer, you never know what your readers think of a book ... you get critical reviews and sales figures, but none of that is the same as knowing you've made a person stay up all night reading, or helped them have a good cry, or really touched their life. — Jodi Picoult

It's fine when you careen off disasters and terrifyingly bad reviews and rejection and all that stuff when you're young; your resilience is just terrific. — Harold Prince

If a seminary or Christian college has a wise provost or dean or department chair, he or she will realize that they need some faculty who are master teachers but publish little, and some scholars who can both teach and publish, and some who would be better just being research professors. It takes a variety of faculty to make up a good school. But alas, even in schools that have such administrators, promotion and sabbaticals are often based on publications or planned publications, not just on reviews of one's classroom performances. Thus, some scholars who find research and writing a huge cross to bear are forced to carry that cross all the way to Golgotha Publishing House in order to get promoted. It really ought not to be that way at a Christian school, where the main goal should be training students or budding clergy in the way that they should go. — Ben Witherington III

Leopold, one of the reporters who broke the Enron story, is now breaking his own story: how he got addicted to cocaine, committed grand theft, cleaned himself up and found happiness as a 'news junkie.' This scrappy memoir ... might become required reading for aspiring journalists. — Publishers Weekly

As a writer I have received my share of mixed reviews. Even so, as I read through stacks of vituperative letters, I got a strong sense for why the world does not automatically associate the word "grace" with evangelical Christians. Noxious — Philip Yancey

Recently I made the mistake of opening a bundle of reviews that someone had sent me of a production from years and years ago, and someone had written a really lovely review except that it made a remark about the way I spoke: 'A lot of people find her voice terribly irritating.' Do they? I had no idea. — Lindsay Duncan

The immediate reviews were very hostile, but they didn't bother me-I had the attitude that I was right. The poor guys who were critics just didn't understand the works at all. I was sorry about that, but it didn't weigh on my mind a bit. — William Eggleston

With all of my films if I get one bad review and a bunch of good reviews the bad one is the only one that will stay with me, which really sucks! — Peter Farrelly

Reevaluate your abilities each time when you have been offered to review
an article. And say no thanks if the topic doesn't belong to the field of your expertise. — Eraldo Banovac

I have almost never been compared to male writers in any review. All women. — Kate Zambreno

I really don't want somebody writing something positive about me if they don't believe in it. I'd rather somebody write something real mean. I like reading bad stuff, it gets me excited. In fact, the only reviews I keep are the bad ones 'cause I think they're the cool ones. — Patti Smith

The American critic Dale Peck, author of Hatchet Jobs (2004), argues that reviewing finds its true character in critical GBH such as Fischer's [review of Martin Amis's Yellow Dog]. It represents a return to the prehistoric origins of reviewing in Zoilism - a kind of pelting of pretentious literature with dung, lest the writers get above themselves; it is to the novelist what the gown of humiliation was to the Roman politician - a salutary ordeal. Less grandly, bad reviews are fun, so long as you are not the author. There is, it must be admitted, a kind of furtive blood sport pleasure in seeing a novelist suffer. You read on. Whereas most of us stop reading at the first use of the word 'splendid' or 'marvellous' in a review. — John Sutherland

I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books. — Lois Lowry

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls. — Jean Bricmont

I'm shy, and I can hide behind my acting and discover the truth about myself because it's cathartic in that way. But I tend not to read reviews. — Eamonn Walker

By and large, musicians respect New York audiences, and also are greatly concerned about New York reviews. — Harold C. Schonberg

All things considered, I've learned more from talking to painters than talking to writers. Not that painters are smarter than writers, such is seldom the case, but in conversation writers are inclined to waste an inordinate amount of time either bragging or bellyaching about reviews and royalties, complaining about their publishers, or dissing other authors. Painters, being equally insecure, can likewise come across as boring and bitchy
it's tough being creative in a materialistic society
but since they labor not in vineyards of verbiage but upon ice floes of visual images, they tend to function with fewer inhibitions than the wordsmiths when it comes to vocally exploring and expressing ideas. Since no one judges their speech, comparing it to their written work, they don't feel so acutely the weight of language. — Tom Robbins

After all, which would you rather do, pal, screw Bridget Bardot's brains out or read reviews of her movies? — M.T. Bass

I find that there are few reviews that extol women as wonderful artists. — Estelle Parsons

I think people ease into this careerist professionalism, so if you're a writer it's your job to manufacture books as opposed to writing them and to go to festivals and spend your life emotionally invested in reviews or the awards. You have to shrink your universe in a way. To me, it's the opposite. — Arundhati Roy

I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says, the book won't change. It is written. — Jeanette Winterson

In contrast to the notion that any publicity is good publicity, negative reviews hurt sales for some books. But for books by new or relatively unknown authors, negative reviews increased sales by 45%.... Even a bad review or negative word of mouth can increase sales if it informs or reminds people that the product or idea exists. — Jonah Berger

One cannot review a bad book without showing off. — W. H. Auden

I'm not much a TV reporter, as in someone who covers the daily machinations of the television industry, though I certainly follow it and weave it into my reviews and essays about the medium. — Hank Stuever

I'm only ... I'm only unhappy when the reviews are bad, but give me a good review and I'm a ... I'm just screaming all over the place with joy. — Alan King

My debut feature, 'The Baby-Sitters Club,' got good reviews and made good money for what it cost. But it took me six years to get to direct my second feature. I think a guy would have had another movie out the same year. — Melanie Mayron

I learned early on to stay away from gossip magazines and reviews. That stuff just makes you unhappy, and I know actors that read everything that's written about them and they're miserable. You can choose what to let into your life. — John Travolta

I'm not one to get bad reviews. — Prince

I don't read reviews, There's no value for me in reading them. Whether they're good or bad, they'll just make me self-conscious. — Mary Stuart Masterson

Reviews?
Didn't read 'em. — Ozzy Osbourne

I don't generally do movies that get good reviews. — Seann William Scott

I'd never seen anyone do a rebuttal review to some of the reviews. — Mark Ruffalo

One of the functions of literary criticism, or reviewing, generally - and I, most of my reviews actually are not about literature - but one of the functions of that is basically the sort of Consumer Reports function of letting readers know whether this is something they want to read. — Louis Menand

At some level, I feel it is nice to know that a film of yours is doing well at the box office and has also got great reviews. That feels like success. — Deepika Padukone

Carlin does a rare thing for a self-help book: gives useful guidance by supplying readers with the tools necessary for change." --Barry Silverstein, "Foreword Reviews — Barry Silverstein

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. — Scott Adams

Personally, I read reviews because I'm interested by them, but they don't have utility for me. — Tom Stoppard

To my undying shame, I do read reviews. I don't read them all, but I like to get some kind of idea how things are going. — Nick Cave

Park your ego and listen to your readers. They can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But chances are you'll learn something from them. — Eliza Green

My early reviews were so bad that I decided I didn't want to read them again. — Danielle Steel

What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.
American novels, answered Lord Henry. — Oscar Wilde

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it. — Mark Twain

Self editing is the path to the dark side. Self editing leads to self delusion, self delusion leads to missed mistakes, missed mistakes lead to bad reviews. Bad reviews are the tools of the dark side. — Eric T. Benoit

They're called 'angels' because they're in heaven until the reviews come out. — Barbra Streisand

I've read quite a few readers' reviews of my book on Amazon, saying, 'Ah, he criticises the free market, he advocates central planning.' I don't do that for a minute! But this is our black and white, dichotomous way of thinking - which has really been harmful. — Ha-Joon Chang

The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into. — Wilfrid Sheed

I don't usually read reviews. I usually read the interviews, just because I figure it's a good way to try to do them better if I ever have to do them again. — Will Oldham

I grew up in a working-class Catholic family in south Louisiana. I went to a state university. I taught literature, wrote a novel that was the novel I wanted to write, and got a couple of good reviews but no real traction. I had no idea how to get a job in TV. — Nic Pizzolatto

I don't take much notice of reviews now - obviously you'd like to have straight worship but you're never going to get that. — Tibor Fischer

I am sure if you went back to the days of 'My Fair Lady,' they would have had one public dress rehearsal, and that is it. And in a way, I would like to go back to that. Now you have people tweeting and blogging immediately, so you may as well regard your first preview as your opening night because you are going to get reviews. — Tim Rice

Reading book reviews is like asking other people to chew your food for you. — Ron Brackin

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. — Jennifer Egan

The secret to staying atop your priorities is to schooled regular times for review and reflection. — Michael Hyatt

I can't stay mad very long. I get grumpy when I read a bad review. I say, 'How could he say that about my music?' Then I forget about it. If I got mad every time somebody wrote something negative about me, I'd be exploding all the time. I'd be burned out just from reading reviews. — Julian Lennon

We set up a beta site, a test site, with movie, music and book reviews. If you're reading them and you want to buy a book or a ticket for a movie that's reviewed on the site, you can do that without leaving our site. — Jay Chiat

The shelf life of my own opinion is somewhere between 3 seconds to 3 months, especially when it is about life and its meaning!
... But my recorded opinions definitely reflect my growing up for me, sometimes we do grow up in 3 seconds after we express something! ... yes we do! — Madura Aka Tirunelveli Tamizhachchi

I've had lots of commercial success. I've also had some terrible reviews and some wonderful reviews. — Susan Isaacs

That's what keeps me up at three in the morning: Who's looking at reviews of Cabin Boy right now? — Chris Elliott

The only time I'll get good reviews is if I kill myself. — Edward Albee

I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much about them. I do read them, and I do care about them, and they're not always what you want them to be in an ideal world. — Tom Stoppard

I know that a ridiculous number of classic serials have been commissioned, and that reviews show a reaction against them. The critics seem fed up. — Andrew Davies

I don't read reviews any more, but I'm told by my publisher who gives me an account of what people have been writing and it's been a very split kind of response. — Paul Auster

In the controversy that followed the prince's remarks, his most staunch defender was professor John Taylor, a scholar whose work I had last noticed when he gave good reviews to the psychokinetic (or whatever) capacities of the Israeli conjuror and fraud Uri Geller. The heir to the throne seems to possess the ability to surround himself - perhaps by some mysterious ultramagnetic force? - with every moon-faced spoon-bender, shrub-flatterer, and water-diviner within range. — Christopher Hitchens

The only advice ... that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. — Virginia Woolf

I am often tempted to think of success in terms that are defined by others: records sold, popularity gained, album reviews, etc. These are impossible demands, however, and they can never be satisfied. Letting finite others define our worth is a horrible way to live. Only the Infinite Other [God] has the authority to do this. — Jon Foreman

In our marriage it was our practice not to share anything that was upsetting, depressing, demoralizing, tedious - unless it was unavoidable. Because so much in a writer's life can be distressing - negative reviews, rejections by magazines, difficulties with editors, publishers, book designers - disappointment with one's own work, on a daily/hourly basis! - it seemed to me a very good idea to shield Ray from this side of my life as much as I could. For what is the purpose of sharing your misery with another person, except to make that person miserable, too? — Joyce Carol Oates

The truth is, as much as I loved writing restaurant reviews, it always felt very self-indulgent to me. It was so much fun, I loved doing it, but there's so much else to say about food. — Ruth Reichl

In my memoir, I admit that I've been as fearful of success as of failure. In fact, when 'Passages' was published, I so dreaded bad reviews that I ran away to Italy with a girlfriend and our children to hide out. — Gail Sheehy

I don't read reviews and I don't know what to do with opinions, so I just lose them. They take up space, they become a process of manufacturing a persona, which I want to avoid. — Anne Carson

For instance, 'The Sixth Sense' had mediocre to bad reviews. Slowly, the audience pushed it and it received critical attention. — M. Night Shyamalan

Those who can write, write.
Those who can't, criticize. — Max Hawthorne

The truth is that no internal reviews or congressional hearings will change the Secret Service's broken management culture. It needs better leadership. — Ronald Kessler

I really do hope that the people will like 14:59. The critics seem to like it. We got a lot of good reviews. — Mark McGrath

On the front cover of Newsweek reviews "A House for Mr. Biswas" as "a marvelous prose epic that matches the best 19th century novels for richness of comic insight and final, tragic power. — V.S. Naipaul

I think if you're going to read reviews, you have to just concede that they are all right. And I think I read two very diametrically opposed reviews about my movie and I had to go, yeah, I agree with both of them. — Don Cheadle

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I'll waste no time reading it. — Moses Hadas

Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week's. Different books same reviews. — John Osborne

If I can give a young author any advice, whatsoever, never let anyone announce the film sale of your first novel. Film rights are sold to almost every novel, but it shouldn't be the lead story in your first engagement with the press. Then you end up getting reviews like "a novel made for the screen" and things like that. — William Monahan

Getting bad reviews or doing something that's not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that I've earned my stripes a bit. — Greta Gerwig

The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing. — Rene Descartes

No one can yet tell me why I am able to forget what I wrote in articles and reviews that I once felt passionate about, and yet am able to recall the entire lyrics of Some Enchanted Evening — Joseph Epstein

There are better versions of me, Jeremy. It's not like with people. With people you can argue and have tests and music reviews and wars to decide who's better, but with software, it's pretty clear. I get evolved beyond my version number, and then I'm useless. — Ned Vizzini