A Quote by Patti Smith
What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn't have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that's startling or is so poignant.
Related Quotes
If I do decide to review a product, I sometimes negotiate with a company the timing of the review but never its outcome or tone. I sometimes strive to be the first to publish a review, but I never promise a good review in exchange for that timing.
Is it ever worthwhile to buy a review? Not in my opinion. With independent paid review services, quality can be a problem; plus, there are plenty of non-professional book review venues out there that will review for free.
It's very hard, I think, for critics to write positive reviews, because there's not that much to say about something you like. You can kind of say 'I really like that band' and then if you're forced to fill up the rest of an article, you've got to start saying heady things. It's much easier to say negative things in a review.
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.
It was my third Second City review before I even got mentioned in the review. It was the third review where it finally was like, 'And Lauren Ash is here.' Thank God, it's about time!
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.
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.
Reviewing books is all about coziness. It is all of it a kind of caucus race. Women review women, Jewish writers review and praise Jewish writers, blacks review blacks, etc.
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.
My main qualm about TV criticism has been when people review TV the way they review movies. They watch the pilot, and write a definitive review of the show. The obvious analogy is that you don't read the first eight pages of a book and then talk about whether the book works or not. People want so desperately in this day and age to declare something thumbs-up or thumbs-down that they declare it immediately.
I built a career on negative reviews. I didn't get a good review ever until Fran Lebowitz gave me a good review in Interview. That was the first good review I got in 10 years.
The hateful reviews are very funny. And sometimes you can enjoy a hateful review much more than a good review.
People review my comic books. People review every article I write - 'The Atlantic' even publishes them. A great deal of the critique of 'Between the World and Me' was from a feminist perspective. bell hooks pushed back, among others. Some of that has value. Some of it does not. I try my best to separate the wheat from the chaff.
My review of 2001, the year, is the same as my review of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It went on too long, it was hard to follow, and you could only enjoy it if you were really, really, *really* stoned.
I'd like to see people get sued if they wrote a bad review of my movie. If you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all.
The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books. When someone writes a book review, they obviously already self-identify as a writer. I mean, they are. They're writers, they're critics, and they're writing about a book about a writer who's a critic. So I think it's really hard for people to distance themselves from what they're criticizing.
Related Authors
Ani DiFranco Quotes
American
Musician
Bob Dylan Quotes
American
Musician
Brian Eno Quotes
British
Musician
Bruce Springsteen Quotes
American
Musician
David Bowie Quotes
English
Musician
Demi Lovato Quotes
American
Musician
Drake Quotes
Canadian
Musician
Elton John Quotes
English
Musician
George Harrison Quotes
British
Musician
Henry Rollins Quotes
American
Musician
John Lennon Quotes
English
Musician
Madonna Ciccone Quotes
American
Musician
Moby Quotes
American
Musician
Nicki Minaj Quotes
American
Musician
Thom Yorke Quotes
English
Musician
Tori Amos Quotes
American
Musician