A Quote by Matt Haig

British culture is very cynical sometimes of overt displays of sentimentality, and I think that becomes almost a suspicion of emotion, or a suspicion of someone making a grand statement. It is always easier to be ironic, or 'meta', or coolly postmodern. But I think there is such a thing as authentic sentimentality.

Matt Haig

Quote Topics

Almost Always Authentic Becomes British British Culture Culture Cynical Easier Emotion Grand Ironic Making Postmodern Sentimentality Someone Sometimes Statement Such A Thing Suspicion Thing Think Very

Quote Author

Matt Haig
British - Writer
Born: July 3, 1975

In film, it's very important to not allow yourself to get sentimental, which, being British, I try to avoid. People sometimes regard sentimentality as emotion. It is not. Sentimentality is unearned emotion.

Ridley Scott

Maggie Smith has a unique sense of comedy, based on a somewhat ironic view of real life, making it both funnier and more sad. But perhaps her greatest ability, or at least the one that most intrigues me, is how she can convey deep and powerful emotion without a trace of sentimentality.

Julian Fellowes

Sentimentality, like pornography, is fragmented emotion; a natural consequence of a high visual gradient in any culture.

Marshall McLuhan

I love things that are brave enough to be nakedly about what our lives are actually built of, when you're wild about someone, or you love something, or you're a fool, or you embarrass yourself. And I don't think the answer is cynicism. Cynicism is not the cure for sentimentality. Cynicism is its own form of sentimentality. For example, I tried to watch Breaking Bad. After three episodes, I thought, I don't like this guy. I don't care about him. But you can see why people tell themselves that they think this is real. But real doesn't mean bad.

Daniel Mendelsohn

I think sometimes good sentimentality is fun when it's balanced.

Cameron Crowe

There's a suspicion always about politicians. The suspicion level is really elevated and it just feels like people do not trust their institutions.

Christopher Michael Cillizza

If you're striving for strong emotion and strong sentiment, and you're authentic with it and honest with it, then you're on the right side of the line. But if you step into sentimentality, there is a false move or a false tone to it.

Lasse Hallstrom

I distinguish sentiment from sentimentality. Sentimentality makes your skin crawl. It's like too much sugar. But, sentiment is a great feeling.

Josh Radnor

I've always wanted to sing. I don't think I have a great voice, but I just think that I get the emotion. It's very authentic. Whatever emotion I'm feeling, I can sing it, and you can feel it.

Mac Miller

Sentimentality is unearned emotion.

James Joyce

I think that television lately has been extremely dark and, in some ways, cynical but I also think that people who are writing those shows probably feel exactly as I do - that sometimes the darkness of a story can highlight the light in a story. There's a lot of cynical stuff but I think it may be even more in movies now where you see so many movies about cynical and corrupted characters. That's the state of many movies right now but movies, television, all of culture, there's always going to be a battle between the stories that are cynical and stories that are hopeful.

Randall Wallace

There is no more effective way to radicalize American Muslim youth than for political leaders to make public displays of prejudice against all Muslims. Suspicion will undermine their sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics.

Miroslav Volf

African cinema doesn't have an African industry at all and that's where our problem arises. We come to all of these initiatives with a lot of suspicion because we're so inhabited by the notion of being colonized, the post-colonial thought that someone wants us to do something that is their interest and not ours and even it's not true, there's the suspicion of it like where is this going?

Jihan El-Tahri

When you see a Donald Trump and a Bernie Sanders, very unconventional candidates, have considerable success, then obviously there's something there that's being tapped into; a suspicion on globalization, a desire to reign in it's excesses, a suspicion of elites and governing institutions that people feel may not be responsive to their immediate needs. And that sometimes gets wrapped up in issues of ethnic identify or religious identity or cultural identity, and that can be a volatile mix.