86 quotes found
“The good critic is he who narrates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.”
“The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights actors and audiences - a figure dreaded and occasionally comic but never welcome never loved.”
“A critic at best is a waiter at the great table of literature.”
“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a...”
“I think there’s a ton of fear in the perception of romance in part because there’s something very realistic in great romance — namely, that women have the right to demand relationships that are bas...”
“Don't base your decision on the opinions of those who don't want to see you grow.”
“When you're different, sometimes you don't see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn't.”
“To The Critics Suicide has made more than one mediocre author glorious before he's able to achieve that sobering "second edition" making his a suicide that waits until it's justified. But I've take...”
“The last madness I’ll probably persist in is to believe myself a poet: it will be up to the critics to cure me.”
“Before cruelly vilifying them from a great height, the mudslingers at newspapers and journals should bear in mind that all artistic endeavors were by and large a mixture of effort and imagination, ...”
“But you don't hold yourself superior to all the judges of music?" she protested."No, no, not for a moment. I merely maintain my right as an individual. I have just been telling you what I think, in...”
“The critics greeted this book with a churlish and horrified outcry. Certain virtuous people, in newspapers no less virtuous, made a grimace of disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw i...”
“Constant indiscriminate approval devalues because it is so predictable.”
“Critics are biased and so are readers. (Indeed a critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.) But intelligent readers soon discover how to allow for the windage of their...”
“Two and two continue to make four in spite of the whine of the amateur for three or the cry of the critic for five.”
“He has a right to criticize who has a heart to help.”
“His words leap across rivers and mountains but his thoughts are still only six inches long.”
“Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.”
“In judging others folks will work overtime for no pay.”
“If you are willing to take the punishment you're halfway through the battle. That the issues may be trivial the battle ugly is another point.”
