Quotes About Criticism

They do not have big ideas or a grandiose vision of what America should be like. They pretty much just love to hate.

Infinite Jest' is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it.

He can't think, he can't write. There's no discernible talent.

Reviewing bad books is bad for the character – WH Auden

Characters carrying the playwright's disapproval is a un-Shakespearian burden.

My introduction, implicitly echoing Oscar Wilde's remark that all bad poetry is sincere, grants the benign social decency of [Stephen] King's fictions.

Não posso ter certeza, mas às vezes imagino se uma preferência crítica pelo contexto sobre o texto não reflete uma geração tornada impaciente com a leitura em profundidade.

I have received many nasty letters from neo-conservatives, who denounce me because I refuse to say that the function of studying canonical works is to reinforce our moral suppositions.

Saint-Beuve, para mí el más interesante de los críticos franceses, nos enseñó a hacernos una pregunta crucial acerca de cualquier escritor al que leemos a fondo: ¿Qué piensa el autor de nosotros?

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide. [ Writer's Digest , September 1961]

Calpurnia's tyranny, unfairness, and meddling in my business had faded to gentle grumblings of general disapproval.

Kartais mane labai negražiai pavadina, bet žinok, vaikeli, jei kas nors ant tav?s burnoja, tai dar nereiškia, kad tu esi ?žeistas. Blogas žodis tav?s nežemina, tik parodo, koks apgail?tinas yra besikeikiantis žmogus.

The closest that either Voltaire or the other historical geniuses of the age -- Hume and Gibbon -- came to understanding unreason's creative potentialities was in their Ironic criticism of themselves and in their own efforts to make sense out of history. This, at least, led them to view themselves as being as potentially flawed as the cripples they conceived to be acting out the spectacle of history.

He only profits from praise who values criticism.

Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi

Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

If a reviewer is beating me up, I just say, 'Oh well, my writing is not to his or her taste.' And that's as far as it goes. Because I will simultaneously read a review where somebody says, 'Oh my God, I had so much fun reading this book and I learned so much.'

There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I'm talking about a writer's critics, who don't address what you've written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context.

Nothing anybody's said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people's children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks.

The role of a goalkeeper is difficult to judge, above all if you haven't been a goalkeeper. It's like me giving an opinion on someone's job without having had any experience in their sector. You start to realise how many stupid things are said and written about goalkeepers.

I am sure every movie I've made, even as an actor, had multiple test screenings. And I am sure there have been horrible things written about me. But I never have to see them!

I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.