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.
If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they'll kill themselves laughing.
When I asked Fischer why he had not played a certain move in our game, he replied: 'Well, you laughed when I wrote it down!'
Well, the most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning - it's a man or a woman without a sense of humor.
A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
The bigger the humbug, the better people will like it.
I've got the brain of a four year old. I'll bet he was glad to be rid of it.
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