quotations about criticism
An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.
MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS
The Monk
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
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
The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
Characters
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
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
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
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
A critic is an old maid that writes instructions to you concerning the rearing of your own children.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
It may be laid down as an almost universal rule, that good poets are bad critics.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays
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
The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare
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
Criticism is too apt to sweep the blossoms from the tree, as well as the caterpillars.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.
EDWARD ALBEE
Theater Week, 1988
Time is the only critic.
JAMES M. CAIN
The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978
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
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
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