We have been educated to such a fine — or dull — point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it's all about. We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way.
We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.
We protest against unjust criticism but we accept unarmed applause.
We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves. He must have the passion of a lover.
When a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
When subjected to the rain of criticism, let?s not curse the rain. Let?s accept it as a part of life. Let?s remember that the more criticism we can successfully handle, the more zest we will experience in our lives.
When the critics come around it's always too late.
Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten.
Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture; it's a really stupid thing to want to do.
Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.
Writing prejudicial, off-putting reviews is a precise exercise in applied black magic. The reviewer can draw free-floating disagreeable associations to a book by implying that the book is completely unimportant without saying exactly why, and carefully avoiding any clear images that could capture the reader's full attention.
You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.
You should not say it is not good. You should say you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.
You're never s good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
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