I made a Christmas album a couple of years ago and just put it out on my Web site. It kind of smacked of this flavor. All of the reviews said it was Western swing even when it was Christmas standards.

I have learned not to read reviews. Period. And I hate reviewers. All of them or at least all but two or three. Life is much simpler ignoring reviews and the nasty people who write them. Critics should find meaningful work.

I found out about reviews early on. They're mostly written by sad men on bad afternoons. That's probably why I'm less angry than some writers who are so narcissistic they consider every line of every review even a thoughtful one as major treason.

I don't really make movies because I want to see my face on a billboard or because I want to get good reviews or have a big box office. That doesn't really matter to me at all.

I don't generally do movies that get good reviews.

That's what keeps me up at three in the morning: Who's looking at reviews of Cabin Boy right now?

When you hire that first person then you're a boss. You've got performance reviews. You've got complaints about not making enough money. You've got people who are just going to sell your story to the tabloids.

There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now the story of Keats can redeem them in their fantasy or imagination in the future. I think Keats' poem 'Endymion' is a really difficult poem and I'm not surprised that a lot of people pulled it apart in a way.

It's funny because '1600 Penn' was the first time I really started to read the reviews because I am an executive producer and I wanted to see what people were enjoying and not enjoying as a means to an end right?

Life is a very orderly thing but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like. There's nothing that says I can't write a page of full stops. There is no 'should' involved although you wouldn't know that from literary reviews and critics.

Of course Hollywood is still making some excellent pictures which reflect the great artistry that made Hollywood famous throughout the world but these films are exceptions judging from box office returns and press reviews.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews you have to give value to the criticism.

Internet mailing lists are like Fox television shows. They have really cool previews and they get you all excited about them but they just don't live up to their promises.

I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says the book won't change. It is written.

I don't know much about auctions. I sometimes go to previews and see art sardined into ugly rooms. I've gawked at the gaudy prices and gaped at well-clad crowds of happy white people conspicuously spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion such as we enjoy in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.