Criticism Quotes

Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only questio...

I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the ...

Those who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write,Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.

This mannerism of what he'd seen of society struck Homer Wells quite forcefully; people, even nice p...

Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grav...

Book reviewers are little old ladies of both sexes.

In the West, of course, God has been dead for some time. What remains is religion as social belief, ...

1. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the things they read (or watch, or listen to, or tast...

In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into som...

The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a super...

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open se...

You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.

You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees ...

We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, witho...

For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender a consistence to...

These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discover...

Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.

When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.

Now that I think about it, it seems to me that’s what Idiocy is: the ability to be enthusiastic all ...

Anyone who finds himself incapable of grasping the complexities of a work hides his withdrawal behin...

It is naturally a sign of inner liberation when a patient can squarely recognize his difficulties an...

...it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless critic...

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

This is what is known as perspective, and it is a swindle.

As a matter of fact, we are none of us above criticism; so let us bear with each other's faults.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world tho' the cant of hypocrites may be the wors...

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world - though the cant of hypocrites ihay be the...

Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous.

I like criticism. It makes you strong.

It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for eve...

I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.

Like almost all of Beefheart's recorded work, it was not even "ahead" of its time in 1969. Then and ...

If you are willing to take the punishment you're halfway through the battle. That the issues may be...

At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabri...

The injunction to be nice is used to deflect criticism and stifle the legitimate anger of dissent.

The notion that the only way you can critically engage with a person’s ideas is to take a shot at th...

The impression given us by a person or a work (or an interpretation of a work) of marked individuali...

I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to c...

Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.

The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.

There is no person on earth so bad that he does not have something about him that is praiseworthy. W...

An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attac...

If you criticize what you’re doing too early you’ll never write the first li

I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be be...

It is peculiar to “ressentiment criticism” that it does not seriously desire that its demands be ful...

Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the objects themselves,...

There are those who see film and take it seriously as an artistic medium, and others who go to have ...

All around the recognized word and the comprehended sentence, the other graphisms take flight, carry...

The necessity of reform mustn’t be allowed to become a form of blackmail serving to limit, reduce, o...

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure ...

...were these Essays of mine considerable enough to deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I th...

Said the pot to die kettle "Get away blackface."

The critics only made me work harder.

Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the wors...

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always ri...

Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to clo...

To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.

Kerouac lacks discipline, intelligence, honesty and a sense of the novel. His rhythms are erratic, h...

The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism

Illusion is whatever is fixed or definable, and reality is best understood as its negation…

A snowflake is probably quite unconscious of forming a crystal, but what it does may be worth study ...

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That...

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating t...

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.    To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim....

The arts that have escaped [uniformity] best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poet...

When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get toget...

As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair so an unsuccessful author turns critic.

Vilify! Vilify! Some of it will always stick.

Always bring money along with your complaints.

Works of art are infinitely solitary and nothing is less likely to reach them than criticism. Only l...

As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain sublime assurance of success, but a...

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicte...

More and more people think of the critic as an indispensable middle man between writer and reader a...

There is something essentially ridiculous about critics, anyway: what is good is good without our sa...

Not much to say except to warn you not to get too serious about all this, if you want to become a wr...

There is no, and cannot be, any situation in which we don't respect the law and the judiciary. It is...

To those who suspect that intellect is a subversive force in society, it will not do to reply that i...

Critics! Appalled I ventured on the name.Those cutthroat bandits in the paths of fame.

Ivanov had been a party member since 1902. Back then he had tried to write stories in the manner of ...

I went on writing reviews for the newspaper, and critical articles crying out for a different approa...

For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Read...

The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights actors and audiences - a figu...

A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man i...

I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, "If you understand something you can explain it so that ...

A question I have often asked is, ‘What would an inoffensive political cartoon look like?’ What woul...

The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secul...

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to ...

The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secul...

When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? Wh...

All I’m arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive,...

To point out nonepistemic motives in another’s view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, ...

The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.

The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.

The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.

The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.