quotations about criticism
Critics are like dead coals; they may blacken, but cannot burn.
ROBERT ANDERSON
The Works of the British Poets
On the whole, however, the critic is far less of a professional faultfinder than is sometimes imagined. He is first of all a virtue-finder, a singer of praise. He is not concerned with getting rid of dross except in so far as it hides the gold. In other words, the destructive side of criticism is purely a subsidiary affair. None of the best critics have been men of destructive minds. They are like gardeners whose business is more with the flowers than with the weeds.
ROBERT WILSON LYND
The Art of Letters
If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.
EDWARD ALBEE
Theater Week, 1988
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
The Wit of Sir Winston
If we wear our worst reviews like a backpack, they travel with us.
JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT
The Day I Shot Cupid
In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.
JOHN STEINBECK
Travels with Charley
Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid, and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous, and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, expand the heart, and are worthy of being introduced at the symposium of the gods.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
It may be laid down as an almost universal rule, that good poets are bad critics.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays
The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
The Pentameron: Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
KURT VONNEGUT
Palm Sunday
God knows, people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick; camp-following eunuchs of literature.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
letter to Sherwood Anderson, May 23, 1925
A critic is an old maid that writes instructions to you concerning the rearing of your own children.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Criticism is above all a gift, an intuition, a matter of tact and flair; it cannot be taught or demonstrated--it is an art. Critical genius means an aptitude for discerning truth under appearances or in disguises which conceal it; for discovering it in spite of the errors of testimony, the frauds of tradition, the dust of time, the loss or alteration of texts. It is the sagacity of the hunter whom nothing deceives for long, and whom no ruse can throw off the trail.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
A genuine criticism should, as I take it, reflect the colours, the light and shade, the soul and body of a work.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
A poet that fails in writing, becomes often a morose critic. The weak and insipid white wine makes at length excellent vinegar.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough state, or gold in bars; they are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their criticism has scales and weights, but neither crucible nor touchstone.
JOUBERT
attributed, Day's Collacon
We are naturally displeased with an unknown critic, as the ladies are with a lampooner, because we are bitten in the dark, and know not where to fasten our revenge.
JOHN DRYDEN
Virgil: The Eclogues
A perfect work destroys the critic's art.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.
MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS
The Monk
The necessity of reform mustn't be allowed to become a form of blackmail serving to limit, reduce, or halt the exercise of criticism. Under no circumstances should one pay attention to those who tell one: "Don't criticize, since you're not capable of carrying out a reform." That's ministerial cabinet talk. Critique doesn’t have to be the premise of a deduction that concludes, "this, then, is what needs to be done." It should be an instrument for those for who fight, those who resist and refuse what is.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
The Essential Foucault