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.