quotations about criticism
Criticism is a life without risk.
JOHN LAHR
Light Fantastic
Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Titan
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
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
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
ARISTOTLE
attributed, The Writer's Workout
A critic is like an idler amusing himself with a spy-glass; he looks at the defects of a work through the end that magnifies, then inverts the instrument to discover the virtues.
E.P. DAY
Day's Collacon
Time is the only critic.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Francis Hopkinson, Mar. 13, 1789
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
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
Critics? Don't talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don't.
JONATHAN RABAN
attributed, Looking Together: Writers on Art
You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid -- but most people don't take the trouble.
EDWARD ALBEE
"Edward Albee: An Interview", Edward Albee: Planned Wilderness
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
A critic is an old maid that writes instructions to you concerning the rearing of your own children.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Some kinds of criticism are as much too insipid as others are too pragmatical. It is not easy to combine point with solidity, spirit with moderation and candour. Many persons see nothing but beauties in a work, others nothing but defects. Those cloy you with sweets, and are 'the very milk of human kindness,' flowing on in a stream of luscious panegyrics; these take delight in poisoning the sources of your satisfaction, and putting you out of conceit with nearly every author that comes in their way. The first are frequently actuated by personal friendship, the last by all the virulence of party spirit.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
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
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
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
A genuine criticism should, as I take it, reflect the colours, the light and shade, the soul and body of a work.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
Criticism very often consists of measuring the learning and the wisdom of others, either by our own ignorance, or by our little technical and pedantic partialities and prejudices.... A book thus unfairly treated, may be compared to the laurel, of which there is honor in the leaves, but poison in the extract.
HORACE SMITH
The Tin Trumpet