External Perspectives Quotes

The worst advice? 'Don't listen to the critics.' I think that you really ought to listen to the critics, because sometimes they're telling you something is broken that you can fix.

Some writers such as John Cheever and Raymond Carver seem to draw artistic energy from analyzing the realm of their own experiences - their social circles and memories and mores. I'm one of those who draw creative energy from the opposite.

Communists must listen attentively to the views of people outside the Party and let them have their say. If what they say is right, we ought to welcome it, and we should learn from their strong points; if it is wrong, we should let them finish what they are saying and then patiently explain things to them.

The great achievement of Western culture since the Enlightenment is to make many of us peer over the wall and grant some respect to people outside it; the great failure of Western Culture is to deny that walls are inevitable or important.

A lot of people believe in reading reviews. If I get too focused on some detail of what they've said about me, I'm going to end up shooting myself in the foot.

Other people's ideas of us are dependent largely on what they've hoped for.

If it is relevant there is always somebody else out there.

All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome

As far as all players [being unfairly connected], people have their own opinions, and they're usually from the outside looking in. I don't listen to someone who is on the outside of what we're dealing with every day on the inside.

Nothing is more apt to deceive us than our own judgment of our work. We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends.

You can forget that other people carry pieces of your own story around in their heads. I've always thought--put together all those random pieces form everyone who's ever known you from your parents to the guy who once sat next to you on a bus, and you'd probably see a fuller version of your life than you even did while living it.

Perception, after all, is not simply a matter of what you believe about yourself, it all encompasses what others think about you, and what has been thought of you historically. I say we can pay attention to those other dimensions of our identity - class, gender, sexual orientation, geographical region - while at the same time understanding how our historically produced racial identity continues to serve, or undercut us.

It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.

People are not used to seeing skiing on water, so I can understand why they think it is fake. That's why we started using outside views: so people can see that's its real.

Experience comes in two different flavors: your own and the experience of others. Most people can learn from their own experiences quite well, but many people simply ignore the experiences and lessons of others.

I think that's one of the biggest goals I had in making a movie, was listening to what other people had to say.

People always have something to say about what you do and how you do it.