Quotes About Criticism

Never forget to be kind when you have to be critical.

If someone criticizes you, give them a compliment.

Do not fear criticism, accept it as an inspiration for boldness and action

We always fail to recognize when we are at fault, but we are always eager to blame others.

Only a man of knowledge is capable of giving constructive criticism.

There has been a vast output of critical studies in contemporary poetry, some of them first rate, but I do not think that , as a rule, a poet should read them.

It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.

Where there are many beauties in a poem I shall not cavil at a few faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature.

If certain critics and poetasters had their way, 'Ordinary Piety' and its child, Dullness, would be the masters of poetry.

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.

Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.

My wife has a beastly habit of comparing poetry -- all literature in fact -- to the droppings of the goats among the rocks -- mere excreta that fertilises the ground it falls on.

Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them.

Most of us have been subjected to terrible political poetry at least once or twice in our lifetimes, and so we tend to shy away from it.

Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara. O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac

I was told over and over the poetry in forms was "conservative" but there was no analysis of why this was so.

All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.

Poetry a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

The trouble with socialists is that they let their bleeding hearts go to their bloody heads.

The unpleasant sound Bush is emitting as he traipses from one conservative gathering to another is a thin, tinny "arf" - the sound of a lap dog.

Why, this fellow doesn't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.