Top Brooks Atkinson Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Brooks Atkinson Biography

Brooks Atkinson

Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960. In his obituary, the Times called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his time." A war correspondent during World War II, he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his work as the Moscow correspondent for the Times.

Read about Brooks Atkinson in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Brooks Atkinson Quotes

The cheese and wine party has the form of friendship without the warmth and devotion. It is a device either for getting rid of social obligations hurriedly en mass, or for making overtures towards more serious social relationships, as in the etiquette of whoring.

Overtures, Party, Rid, Serious, Wine

Although the theater is not life, it is composed of fragments or imitations of life, and people on both sides of the footlight have to unite to make the fragments whole and the imitations genuine.

People, Sides, Theatre, Unite

There should be a dash of the amateur in criticism. For the amateur is a man of enthusiasm who has not settled down and is not habit bound.

Criticism, Dash, Down, Down And, Enthusiasm, Men

Writing is not an end in itself but life transmuted into radiance.

Book, Radiance, Transmuted, Writing

Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy.

Bureaucracy, Business, Enemy, Perform, Spiritual

Don't be condescending to unskilled labor. Try it for a half a day first.

Condescending, Day, Half, Trying, Work

We tolerate differences of opinion in people who are familiar to us. But differences of opinion in people we do not know sound like heresy or plots.

Differences, Heresy, Opinion, People, Plots, Sound

The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.

Bureaucrat, Escape, Man, Men, Perfect, Responsibility

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking.

Artist, Camera, Giving, Photographer, Photography, Virtue

Nothing a man writes can please him as profoundly as something he does with his back, shoulders and hands. For writing is an artificial activity. It is a lonely and private substitute for conversation.

Activity, Artificial, Lonely, Men, Writing

It seems to me that the thing that makes the theater worthwhile is the fact that it attracts so many people with ideas who are constantly trying to share them with the public. Real art is illumination. It gives a man an idea he never had before or lights up ideas that were formless or only lurking in the shadows of his mind. It adds stature to life.

Art, Illumination, Men, People, Real, Stature

The cult of nature is a form of patronage by people who have declared their materialistic independence from nature and do not have to struggle with nature every day of their lives.

Cult, Independence, Materialistic, People, Struggle

This nation was built by men who took risks-pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.

Action, Dreamer, Failure, Men, Risk, Scientists

Nobody is fully alive who cannot apply to art as much discrimination and appreciation as he applies to the work by which he earns his living.

Alive, Apply, Appreciation, Art, Work

In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.

Age, Atheism, Good, People, Time

Real art is illumination, it adds stature to life.

Art, Illumination, Life, Real, Stature

New Yorkers are inclined to assume it will never rain, and certainly not on New Yorkers.

Assume, Assuming, Inclined, New York, Rain, Yorkers

Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia.

Attitude, Become, Dream, Dreams, Sky, Yes

There is no joy so great as that of reporting that a good play has come to town.

Joy, Play, Town, Towns

Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.

Boats, Created, Land, Pirate, Place, Sea

1