“You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them.”

— Edward Albee

"Edward Albee : An Interview", in Edward Albee : Planned Wilderness (1980) edited by Patricia De La Fuente, p. 8
Context: I've noticed that there is not necessarily a great relationship between what the majority of critics have to say and what is actually true. Some of them are so busy trying to mold the public taste according to the limits of their perceptions, and others are so busy reflecting what they consider to be the public taste — that view limited again by their perception. You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid — but most people don't take the trouble.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that mak…" by Edward Albee?

Edward Albee photo

Edward Albee 32

American playwright 1928–2016

Related quotes

“Never pay any attention to what critics say…Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!”

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) Finnish composer of the late Romantic period

Bengt de Törne Sibelius: A Close-Up (London: Faber and Faber25 october

“Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic. Because they're people that can't get the job done. But the future belongs to the dreamers, not to the critics. The future belongs to the people who follow their heart no matter what the critics say.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Liberty University commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B421uhrOV-o&feature=youtu.be&t=12m34s (13 May 2017)
2010s, 2017, May

“I don't take criticisms personally, which must be very annoying for people who mean them personally.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

A woman of extremes (2001)

“It didn’t pay very much, but it enabled me to get other jobs doing art criticism, which I didn’t want to do very much, but as so often when you exhibit reluctance to do something, people think you must be very good at it. If I had set out to be an art critic, I might never have succeeded.”

John Ashbery (1927–2017) poet from the United States

Source: The Paris Review (Issue 90, Winter 1983)

“Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

BBC obituary (2004)

“Urbanized men and women experience not life but the abstraction of life, on ever higher levels of refinement and dislocation from reality. They become processors of ideas, and have evolved such esoteric occupations as the critic, the critic who criticizes criticism, and even the critic who criticizes criticism of criticism. It is a very sad misuse of human talent and energy.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Book of Dreams (1981), Chapter 7 (p. 264)

“I don't like compliments. No. I prefer criticisms; prefer to prove them wrong”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

During an interview in the latter years of his career http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YOti0icEbw

“People always criticize. If they want to, they will find something to criticize. Hey, we all criticize. You like a film or you don’t. It’s up to you. You can’t stop that anyway. That’s part of human nature”

Nancy Kwan (1939) Chinese-American actress and restauranter

How Nancy Kwan Went From Ballet to the Big Screen https://www.shondaland.com/live/a22986681/nancy-kwan-interview/ (September 11, 2018)

“It's wrong to criticize leaders of the church, even if the criticism is true.”

Dallin H. Oaks (1932) Apostle of the LDs Church

Part Two Transcript http://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/script2.html, The Mormons, Dallin H. Oaks, 2007

“Doing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 229

Related topics