A Quote by Michael Ignatieff
Politics is like getting a really bad review: a stinker that you know all your friends are reading.
Related Quotes
Seeing your name on the list for KP or guard duty when you're in the Army is like reading a bad review.
My friends and family have been so well trained that they know I really mean it when I say that I don't care if the review is good, because that can be as dangerous as when it's bad. It's less demoralizing, but it can be just as confusing.
One thing I noticed over time is that if I got a bad review, usually the bad part of it was at the very end. I could tell that nobody read the whole review because they would just say, "It was great to see the review!" In a way, my brain shuts down at the end of an article. It doesn't really want to go to the end.
Writers are funny about reviews: when they get a good one they ignore it-- but when they get a bad review they never forget it. Every writer I know is the same way: you get a hundred good reviews, and one bad, andyou remember only the bad. For years, you go on and fantasize about the reviewer who didn't like your book; you imagine him as a jerk, a wife-beater, a real ogre. And, in the meantime, the reviewer has forgotten all about the whole thing. But, twenty years later, the writer still remembers that one bad review.
Nothing ruins your day more than getting a bad review.
You get a bad review with a novel, and it hurts. But I imagine if you get a bad review with a memoir, it hurts more because you can always say, 'Well, they didn't like my characters,' but when you're the character, it's like, 'Oh, yeah, they actually didn't like me.'
I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: 'I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.'
A writer writes a book. People read it. You don't know what they're reading, really. You read a review and think, "That is so inaccurate. You can't have been reading my book with any kind of attention, because that is all wrong, that's even the wrong name you're including there." But these reviewers have been diminished in importance, the work is so little respected. If you're reviewed by a real critic, by James Wood or Louis Menand, then you get something that is informed, interesting, and highly articulate. But the average review doesn't have that kind of depth anymore.
I tell people all the time like, man, when you a kid, you don't know you're in the hood, or you don't know you poor. You just accepting your environment when you a child, and that's when your friends are really your friends, wholeheartedly and nothing malicious.
When we talk about reviews, what we are really talking about is just a market report - it's like reading about the new Lexus. You have to know what the guy writing the review cares about to understand his take. Does he like sports cars, or does he like Bentleys?
Incidentally, the very, very first review that James Lavelle and I saw of Endtroducing was very negative! It was in The Wire, and the context of the review was that, you know, Mo'Wax was so far behind Ninja Tune. Heheheh. And people wonder why there was this sense of a feud between labels! We just kind of looked at each other and we were like, 'Oh, well, let the floodgates open!' But, not to be facile, that was literally the last bad review I ever saw for that album.
L.A. is a very illusory place. You don't really know who your friends are here because more often than not, it seems like it's just about getting ahead at any cost.
I have a really grounded group of friends, and they like me no matter what. I think it's really important to know who your real friends are.
There was one time I flagged every 'Brokeback Mountain' review on Netflix that was negative. I was, like, 'not helpful,' and I spent, like, an hour doing it, and I wrote a really serious review about it. It's hard for me not to get really sensitive. I don't brush things off like that very easily.
I enjoy getting any kind of mail. Like, for me, like, the more interesting a letter is, I just get more excited, and I know that this going to be great for my friends who are looking forward to reading that in my comic.
As enjoyable as it is when you're just writing and getting feedback from family members, it's 10 times more enjoyable, or 100 times more enjoyable, when you actually start getting paid for it, and people start reading your books, and once in a while you get a good review.
Related Authors
Alexander Hamilton Quotes
American
Politician
Benjamin Franklin Quotes
American
Politician
Bernie Sanders Quotes
American
Politician
David Brooks Quotes
American
Politician
Hillary Clinton Quotes
American
Politician
Jill Stein Quotes
American
Politician
John F. Kerry Quotes
American
Politician
John McCain Quotes
American
Politician
Marco Rubio Quotes
American
Politician
Mitt Romney Quotes
American
Politician
Narendra Modi Quotes
Indian
Politician
Newt Gingrich Quotes
American
Politician
Paul Ryan Quotes
American
Politician
Rand Paul Quotes
American
Politician
Ron Paul Quotes
American
Politician
Ted Cruz Quotes
American
Politician