A Quote by Vladimir Nabokov

I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.

Vladimir Nabokov

Quote Topics

About Asked Been Critic Dismayed Fact Favorite Life My Favorite My Life Myself Never Once Review Reviewer Think

Quote Author

Vladimir Nabokov
American - Novelist
April 22, 1899 - July 2, 1977

I met with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in February. So he'd been in office about a month. It was for an hour. Went over there on a Saturday. They invite... Reince Priebus called and said, "The president wants to see you." He never once asked me what I thought. He never asked me once what he thought I ought to do. He never asked me what I think of this or that. My impression is this man is more self-informed and decisive.

Rush Limbaugh

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.

Art Buchwald

How much of a book review is about the reviewer? Sometimes it's mostly about the reviewer!

Kathryn Harrison

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

Michael Dirda

There's an enormous difference between being a critic and a reviewer. The reviewer reacts to the experience of that book.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

I've never been competitive with other actors. I've been competitive with myself and I'm my own worst critic, a terrible critic I am, and unless I get something right, I feel very unhappy.

Michael Caine

I wouldn't call myself a 'literary critic,' just a book reviewer.

Neel Mukherjee

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.

Walt Mossberg

My God, I have never thanked Thee for my 'thorn!' I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my 'thorn;' I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my 'thorn.' Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.

George Matheson

Some of my father's fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, 'I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any.' We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.

Gore Vidal

Some of my father's fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, "I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any." We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.

Gore Vidal

The world is wonderful and beautiful and good beyond one's wildest imagination. Never, never, never could one conceive what love is, beforehand, never. Life can be great-quite god-like. It can be so. God be thanked I have proved it.

D. H. Lawrence

I never call myself a singer, ever. I never will. I've always been really embarrassed about my voice. I've never been confident about it. I think it's a little bit better now than when I first started. There are people I admire who are genuinely brilliant singers and I know the difference between what they can do and what I can do.

Gary Numan

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.'