Quotes About Critique

Damn these human beings! If I had invented them I would go hide my head in a bag.

The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable- -it is smouched [Milton] from the New Testament and no credit given.

Does Jane Austen do her work too remorselessly well? For me, I mean? Maybe that is it. She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is not believable. Then is it her purpose to make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters? That could be. That would be high art. It would be worth while, too. Some day I will examine the other end of her books and see.

The reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity of construction, excellence of form, purity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of statement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence of events

Tolstoy carelessly neglects to include a boat race.

I satirize at all times, and my hyperboles are as nothing compared to the events to which they refer.

While clearly an impregnable masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw—that of outright unreadability.

John Updike once argued that although fiction can withstand any amount of egocentricity, it is wholly allergic to narcissism.

I wouldn't have minded a rather more detailed conclusion (to Pride and Prejudice) — say, a twenty-page sex scene featuring the two principals, with Mr. Darcy, furthermore, acquitting himself uncommonly well.

Edward describing Angeline's bonnet) Then it is overbright and those colors should never been seen togther upon the same person, not to mention the same garment . he said. And it actually suits you perfectly. It suits your character.

Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense.

always remember that we are in Germany where we have been able to do what would have been possible nowhere else: namely to proclaim as a great mind and profound thinker a mindless, ignorant, nonsense-spreading philosophaster who, through unprecedented, hollow verbiage, thoroughly and permanently disorganizes their brains. I mean our dear Hegel. And

The hollow, knobbled calf was pink, like proper calves should be. (When you re-create the image of man, why repeat God's mistakes?)

At the time I was being celebrated for having made 'India' (whatever that means) proud. It was an odd place to be in, because I wasn't feeling at all proud of India or what was going on here.

was willing to do what everyone else was extremely reluctant to do: to judge (or, as he prefers to say, to "assess") a fellow doctor.

What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable.

Never ask people about your work.

That's not a religion, that's Pokemon.

It is complete loose stool water. It is arse-gravy of the worst kind. - About The Da Vinci Code

Not every line of Hamlet is a jewel. nor every square inch of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling worthy of admiring gasps.

Almost there! Those are not words any writer pines to hear. Much more preferable is "masterpiece" or "timeless brilliance" or "it shall live forever.

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.

Writers are often the worst judges of what they have written.

I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: "Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.