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