Michelle Dean

Podcast listening carries with it a faint aura of cultural snobbery, a notion that to cue up an episode is to do something highbrow and personally enriching, whether it's a history lecture broadcast from a university or an amateur talk show recorded in someone's garage.

American Journalist

James Wolcott

Slashing its way to the finish line, 'Black Swan' is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.

American Critic

Adrian Edmondson

I don't claim that our TV comedies are highbrow in anyway, but I think there's a basis to them, and that's why they're more popular than other TV comedies. There's a basis of truth in them, a gut feeling.

English Actor

Sophie Hannah

Nobody has ever written as many enjoyable, fun-to-read crime novels as Agatha Christie. It's all about the storytelling and the pleasure of the reader. She doesn't want to be deep or highbrow.

British Poet

Virginia Woolf

There can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea.

British Author

Maxfield Parrish

I don't know what people find or like in me, I'm hopelessly commonplace! Current appreciation of my work is a bit highbrow, I've always considered myself a popular artist.

American Artist

C. V. Raman

We must teach science in the mother tongue. Otherwise, science will become a highbrow activity. It will not be an activity in which all people can participate.

Indian Physicist

Phil Klay

I love opera. I love jazz, especially Mingus. This makes me sound highbrow. I'm not.

American Writer

David Slade

I don't see myself as particularly highbrow. I am much more populist.

British Director

Gordon Getty

I personally do not write highbrow music. If I do, it's by accident.

American Businessman

Describes things appealing to people with advanced education or sophisticated tastes.

Cultural Sophistication

Usually contrasted with 'lowbrow', which is simpler and more accessible entertainment.

Not Pop Culture

Can imply pretentiousness or a sense of superiority in one's tastes.

Potential Snobbery

A highbrow person has academic interests, usually in humanities, science, or arts.

Educated Interests

The term is not typically used for casual daily conversations but in specific contexts.

Not Casual Use

A highbrow person may prefer company that shares their sophisticated interests.

Selective Socialization

 the arts are frequently said to be in decline. And I have a collection, probably 10 or 15 headlines, from highbrow magazines deploring the fact that the arts are in decline in our time. I'll give you a couple of representative

Steven Pinker: Human...

 It's a very funny book. It has highbrow intellectual humor, if you have the patience to track down Joyce's references, and more lowbrow dirty jokes. Those, and other sexual references, were too much for some.

Highbrow