At that shameful stage in the development of our criticism, literary abuse would overstep all limits of decorum; literature itself was a totally extraneous matter in critical articles: they were pure...
It is not my methodology to engage too much with critics for many reasons:- I honestly believe that my ego is not worthy of my having to defend it. There are far more important things in the ummah tha...
Being a critic is a terrific method for killing your love of art
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
Criticism is like dissecting a dead frog," Caleb said when the book was published. "They're examining all the guts and shit and organs, when the thing that really matters, whatever it was that animate...
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
A guest sees more in an hour than the host in a year.
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it m...
Some reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along.
Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.
I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.
Reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.
Henry James chews more than he bites off.
Critics are biased and so are readers. (Indeed a critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.) But intelligent readers soon discover how to allow for the windage of their...
Those who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write,Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.
To fail, try to please your critics. To please your critics, try to fail.
If you are willing to take the punishment you're halfway through the battle. That the issues may be trivial the battle ugly is another point.
In judging others folks will work overtime for no pay.
The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.
I'd like to emphasize that when a reader finishes a great novel, he will immediately begin looking for another. If someone loves your book, it increases the chance that he or she will look at mine. So...