indirect criticism Quotes

I don't care how unkind the things people say about me so long as they don't say them to my face.

We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.

I guess people wouldn't say nasty things to my face. When you're kind of isolated, you don't really hear the gossip, or you're not really involved in it. You're here, and it's all going on over there.

When I read a review, 90% of the review is about my lifestyle, and the last two sentences are about the record.

A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment.

I never would say a player stinks. Ever. I'll tell you their team stinks, and first of all, they know their team stinks. And the fans know their team stinks.

Irony is to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he can invent.

Coach Cal really makes you look good.

Puppets can get away with saying things that human beings can't. Because they are cartoonish just to look at, they're not real, you can assign them insane things to feel and vocalize.

Science fiction is a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present. You can criticize communists, racists, fascists or any other clear and present danger, and they can't imagine you are writing about them.

any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.

Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.