Whitney Balliett Quotes

A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.

Whitney Balliett

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Quotes to Explore

• There is a humanitarian impulse that one aspires to and there are days when one doesn't do it very well.

  

  Ralph Fiennes
  • Very
  • Days
  • Humanitarian

• I never been a hater of these other cats, who never really had nothing, being successful. That's not my problem.

  

  Raekwon
  • Problem
  • Successful
  • Cats

• Most people who went about saying a ghost had poked them with a brolly would be locked up somewhere.

  

  Pamela Stephenson
  • People
  • Up
  • Saying

• You look at science fiction and look how often it talks about being alien, being alienated about the other. Look at the number of blue people - 'Avatar,' I'm looking at you. And it is now easier to find people of color in science-fiction literature and media, but the issues of representation are still really, really troubling.

  

  Nalo Hopkinson
  • People
  • Science
  • Color

• We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

  

  A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
  • Up
  • Problem
  • Motivational

• It's just a theory really, but I have always thought that your physical surroundings can shape your voice and personality.

  

  K. D. Lang
  • Thought
  • Personality
  • Voice

• I remember, around age three, peas growing in the back garden. Pinching them from their pods and popping them in the mouth was my first realisation that food came from somewhere other than a shelf.

  

  Caitlin Moran
  • Remember
  • Age
  • Growing

• In an ideal world, I'd spend every weekend at my home in Zermatt in Switzerland.

  

  Vanessa Mae
  • World
  • Home
  • Weekend

• In Europe and the United States, you've got different systems to select candidates, and no system is perfect.

  

  Karl Rove
  • Different
  • You
  • Perfect

• When a relationship with a director is really working, you have the same idea at the same time. You go, 'Look, this isn't working,' and they'll go, 'I know it's not working. What are we gonna do?' And you go and try something else.

  

  Felicity Jones
  • Time
  • Relationship
  • Same

• I always wanted to be an actress. It's been very high up on my list of passions, and I did a couple of short courses, and I've studied at school.

  

  Tahyna Tozzi
  • Up
  • School
  • High

• Right away when I got to college, I realized that being a politician sucks. It's really hard! It wasn't for me. B.J. Novak is convinced that I will run for mayor of Chicago at some point. He begs me to do it. It'd be a tough gig, but I was always very attracted to the idea of helping people and trying to make the city a better place.

  

  Ike Barinholtz
  • People
  • Trying
  • City

• Have you ever walked along a shoreline, only to have your footprints washed away? That's what Alzheimer's is like. The waves erase the marks we leave behind, all the sand castles. Some days are better than others.

  

  Pat Summitt
  • Better
  • Waves
  • Sand

• I like to have sleepovers.

  

  Abigail Breslin
  • Like

• Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.

  

  Pablo Neruda
  • Peace
  • Making
  • Bread

• Guys like Spielberg and Zemeckis and really anybody who is a storyteller-filmmaker today has studied Hitchcock and the way he visually tells a story. He was the master of suspense, certainly, but visually you would get a lot of information from what he would do with the camera and what he would allow you to see as the story was unfolding.

  

  Ralph Macchio
  • Today
  • Story
  • Information

• I don't really like talking about my personal life. I like a certain amount of veil.

  

  Garrett Clayton
  • Life
  • Talking
  • Personal

• Nationalism and racism, to take two examples, are the culturally nurtured outgrowths of simple tribalism.

  

  E. O. Wilson
  • Simple
  • Racism

• I confess to a rare problem - gynekinetophobia, or the fear of women falling on me - but this is a rather mild illness compared with many affluent suburbanites, who have developed an almost total zoophobia, or fear of anything that moves. It is, as any traveller can confirm, a complaint best developed in the affluent North American, and it seems to be part of blue toilet dyes, air fresheners, lots of paper tissues, and two showers a day.

  

  Bill Mollison
  • Problem
  • Confess
  • Traveller

• In Wisconsin, style-wise, it was all about bundling up, maybe wearing a hat and forgetting about your hair.

  

  J. J. Watt
  • Up
  • Style
  • Hair

• When I'm hungry, I need to eat right away.

  

  Fred Armisen

• We have been roommates our entire lives. We just bought a place together.

  

  Mary-Kate Olsen
  • Together

• Was there any meaning to life or to war, that two men should sit together and jump within seconds of each other and yet never meet on the ground below?

  

  David Kenyon Webster
  • Men
  • War
  • Together

• A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.

  

  Whitney Balliett
  • Together
  • Taste
  • Critics