CRITICISM QUOTES III

quotations about criticism

The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.

JEAN DE LA BRUYERE

Characters


The method of the critic is to balance praises with censure, and thus to do justice to the subject and--his own discrimination.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

KURT VONNEGUT

Palm Sunday


Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk


In criticism I will be bold, and sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Letters of Edgar Allan Poe


Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They see how it should be done every night. But they can't do it themselves.

BRENDAN BEHAN

attributed, As One Mad with Wine and Other Similes


Time is the only critic.

JAMES M. CAIN

The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978


A critic is an old maid that writes instructions to you concerning the rearing of your own children.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


When a critic sets himself up as an arbiter of morality, a judge of the matter and not the manner of a work, he is no longer a critic; he is a censor.

EDWARD ALBEE

preface, The American Dream


What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcass of a play!
With croaking notes they bode some dire event,
And follow dying poets by the scent.

JOHN DRYDEN

prologue, All for Love


It may be laid down as an almost universal rule, that good poets are bad critics.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays


Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you’ve got a pretty neck.

ELI WALLACH

attributed, The Book of Classic Insults


Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid, and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous, and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, expand the heart, and are worthy of being introduced at the symposium of the gods.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

"A Letter from Cuba,", Esquire, Dec. 1934


In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

JOHN STEINBECK

Travels with Charley


It is true, I suppose, that nobody finds it exactly pleasant to be criticized our shouted at, but I see in the faces of the human being raging at me a wild animal in its true colors, one more horrible than any lion, crocodile or dragon.

OSAMU DAZAI

No Longer Human


If we wear our worst reviews like a backpack, they travel with us.

JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT

The Day I Shot Cupid


If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.

EDWARD ALBEE

Theater Week, 1988


Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a matter of tact and flair; it cannot be taught or demonstrated--it is an art. Critical genius means an aptitude for discerning truth under appearances or in disguises which conceal it; for discovering it in spite of the errors of testimony, the frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss or alteration of texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing deceives for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

Journal Intime


A poet that fails in writing, becomes often a morose critic. The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

Essays on Men and Manners