A Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good criticism is very rare and always precious.
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Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.
I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.
One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.
People are more interested in reading bombastic ideas, whether they're positive or negative. Part of me has sort of lost interest in doing criticism because of that. I've always realized that criticism is basically autobiography. Obviously in my criticism, it's very clear that it's autobiography, but I think it's that way for everybody.
I actually had someone say to me, 'Lynn, you're going to have very good days, and you're going to have very bad days. But It's rare that things are as good as they look, and it's rare that things are as bad as they seem.' So having perspective, and challenging perspective, is important to making good decisions.
I don't have a very high opinion, actually, of the world of criticism - or the practice of criticism. I think I admire art criticism, criticism of painting and sculpture, far more than I do that of say films and books, literary or film criticism. But I don't much like the practice. I think there are an awful lot of bad people in it.
As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.
Nice criticism is good when it tells you something. A lot of negative "criticism" isn't criticism at all: it's just nasty, "writerly" cliché and invective.
It's actually a rare and precious thing to discover what it is you love to do, and I encourage you to remain unapologetically consumed by it. Be faithful to your gift and very confident in its value.
When you find yourself with the Beloved, embracing for
one breath, in that moment you will find your true destiny.
Alas, don't spoil this precious moment.
Moments like this are very, very rare.
I'm always very careful to make the distinction between music criticism and music journalism. A lot of people don't. But criticism doesn't require reporting. You can write criticism at home in your underwear. On the other hand, journalism takes legwork - you have to get out there and see things and talk to people.
I try to factor solitude into my life because more and more, that's becoming a very precious and rare commodity.
Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes them strive to justify themselves. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts their sense of importance, and arouses resentment.
I always like Madonna; any Madonna song is good for me. Old school Janet Jackson is always good. I usually go old school. It's very rare that I pick a song from nowadays.
Climbing Jacob''s Ladder is a gutsy, glowing account of one man's encounter with a potent spiritual practice and how it transformed his life. This is a precious book - that rare combination of solid wisdom and good literature.
Certainly professionally, yes [I was interested more in history]. And literary criticism, the structure of poetry. But it is primarily as a historian that I work, although text criticism and literary criticism are very much a part of my interests.
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