Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
Interpretation
Critics often focus on finding faults in a work rather than appreciating it. This highlights the tendency to dwell on negatives.
Peter Ustinov's quote critiques the nature of critics, suggesting that they spend an inordinate amount of time looking for flaws in someone else's work, particularly fixating on a single 'wrong word' that might amount to a larger critique. This sheds light on the often negative focus of criticism, which can overshadow the positive aspects of creativity and expression.
In practice
In a discussion about artistic expression, this quote serves to remind us that critics often look for flaws rather than celebrating creativity.
Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox - affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.
I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
Because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.
Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.
There are a hell of a lot of jobs that are scarier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy's heart stops, and you're the one who has to fix it!
You'd better get your laugh while you're making your point, or you won't be doing it very long.
It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
I walk the streets, take the train, it's real simple. Some actors create their own mythology: 'Oh, I'm so famous I can't go places, because I created this mythology that I'm so famous I can't go places.'
I have been born more times than anybody except Krishna.
As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.
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