What ‚multiculturalism‘ boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture – and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

Whenever a high-profile leader dies, people immediately attempt to summarize that person’s life in a sentence. Often, critics and commentators get caught up looking at the leader’s style, or which political or philosophical camp they represented.

The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

The last person I have ever criticized is an official. They have a tough job to do. Things are happening so quick.

Romcoms are hard in a lot of ways: they’re built to be buoyant. It’s easy to demean them.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

He who acts with a constant view to his own advantage will be much murmured against.

If a child from an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe comes to Boston, is raised in Boston, that child will be indistinguishable in language capacities from my children growing up here, and vice versa.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

You can say, ‚Well, isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine‘ – well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter, because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country – I know, because I am one of them.

I have learned to interface – what I think would be the contemporary term – with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I’ve learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

I feel like the way I was raised was to be able to see through all the titles in this world – from religion to race.

There’s people that appreciate what I do; there’s people that criticize it.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

There are people out there who hate me and who say I’m arrogant, vain, and whatever. That’s all part of my success. I am made to be the best.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

Men don’t really like skinny, do they?

Chinese people need to be controlled; otherwise, they will do whatever they want.

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

Honolulu is a melting pot.

I have always marched to my own beat, and most frequently, it was inconsistent not only with my own immediate family, but with my culture as well.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it.

Plato was a bore.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.

Won’t it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

I just didn’t want to get out there anymore; I didn’t want to get back into what I call ‚the swamp.‘ And the other reason why is I don’t think it’s good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama’s got plenty of critics – and I’m just not gonna be one.

People really had a problem with my disinterest in submission. They had a problem with my intellect, and they had a problem with my choice of lovers. They had a problem with my choice of everything.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

To conclude that women are unfitted to the task of our historic society seems to me the equivalent of closing male eyes to female facts.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.

I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ‚hopey changey stuff,‘ she was right: there was nothing there.

America has absorbed people from around the world, and there is an Indian in every part of the world. This characterizes both the societies. Indians and Americans have co-existed in their natural temperament.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

Today different ethnic groups and different nations come together due to common sense.

Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

I have zero desire, just so you know, to be in the limelight. I don’t think it’s good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor. You’re not going to see me giving my opinions in the public arena, until I start selling my book. I’m going to emerge then submerge.

I’ve had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, ‚Your music sucks, you don’t know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don’t know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.‘

I think any man who lets a woman pick what he should wear… I mean, you gotta draw the line somewhere as a man. I see these guys, ‚My wife told me to wear this!‘ And I just shake my head.

I feel strange when I get applauded by people in power… because it’s obvious that it’s them I’m criticizing, but they can’t show that in front of the cameras. It’s quite funny sometimes.

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.

America is just downright mean.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.