Selected taste quotes

1. What makes bitter things sweet? Hunger.

2. That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

3. My favorite jellybean is the pink one with the flavor inside.

4. I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it.

5. The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, 'let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible.' I have lingered, of course.

6. Shakespeare's fault is not the greatest into which a poet may fall. It merely indicates a deficiency of taste.

7. Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.

8. Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

9. For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time.

10. If a movie is described as a romantic comedy, you can usually find me next door playing pinball.

11. Americans have no capacity for abstract thought, and make bad coffee.

12. I did not care for Wagner. My tastes are more classical. Der Fuhrer had no musical taste and liked Wagner because of the bombastic Teutonic glories.

13. I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.

14. The greatest artists have never been men of taste. By never sophisticating their instincts they have never lost the awareness of the great simplicities, which they relish both from appetite and from the challenge these offer to skill in competition with popular art.

15. I have hated every Kress I read, especially this one, but the Bear is a standard Bear and if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like.

16. Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.

17. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste?

18. Taste has never been corrupted by simplicity.

19. Taste is the literary conscience of the soul.

20. Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.

21. Such and so various are the tastes of men.

22. Taste is the intermediate faculty which connects the active with the passive powers of our nature, the intellect with the senses; and its appointed function is to elevate the images of the latter, while it realizes the ideas of the former.

23. A good general rule is to state that the bouquet is better than the taste, and vice versa.

24. The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion.

25. Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.

26. The grand tune is the only thing in music that the great public really understands.

27. On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away.

28. He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.

29. Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.

30. With respect to excellence of Style and Composition, it may perhaps be said that to practised ears the most pleasing Music is such as has the merit of novelty, added to refinement, and ingenious contrivance; and to the ignorant, such as is most familiar and common.

31. Nothing, it is true, is more common than for both Science and Art to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and for creative taste to accept the law of critical taste.

32. Good taste is either that which agrees with my taste or that which subjects itself to the rule of reason. From this we can see how useful it is to employ reason in seeking out the laws of taste.

33. I'm only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler. I don't like beer.

34. Hell is full of musical amateurs. Music is the brandy of the damned.

35. 'Television is not vulgar because people are vulgar; it is vulgar because people are similar in their prurient interests and sharply differentiated in their civilized concerns.'

36. This is an excellent martini-sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.

37. It looks like it's been furnished by discount stores.

38. Wagner's music is better than it sounds.

39. For some strange reason we don't go to charming, light movies anymore. People expect a movie to be heavy and turgid, like 'American Beauty.' We've become a heavy-handed society.

40. I don't drink coffee. I've never had a cup of coffee in my entire life; that's something you probably don't know about me. I've hated the taste since I was a kid.

41. In conversation with Mona Bismarck and Gore Vidal, 'Mona said, 'Did you see Gore's new play The Best Man when you were in New York?' 'Of course not.'...'Don't like plays, only shows.' He meant musical comedies.' (Vidal, Palimpsest, 206)

42. To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed about the concept of 'art'. What one person considers to be 'art' is often not 'art' to another. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly' are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only 'kitsch' is not art - we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is 'kitsch'? If only I knew!

43. I have but the simplest taste - I am always satisfied with the best.

44. No, I've never cared for his work. Too scented.

45. 'She loves this newt-nuzzling blister.'

46. Story belongs to the people. They are sounder judges of it than anyone else, for their senses are unspoiled and their emotions are free.

47. I miss the lack of melody [in current music] as well. I mean, a lot of people think I'm crazy for liking Creed and I like them purely because they sing! I mean, the singer of Creed sings like the guy from Pearl Jam, very close kind of voice. But I like the fact that Creed sing. I don't care if they're a Bible band, Satan band:

48. ... you can't write a cheque for taste.

49. A fucking good tune