Criticism Quotes

“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

“Nobody kicks a dead dog”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry

“When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.”
― Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton: A Memoir

“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”
― Oscar Wilde

“A lot of people who find out about the things I do immediately figure I'm just a pathetic "druggie" with nothing to say that is worth hearing. They talk endless bull shit of "recovery!" They make it sound like some amazing discovery...don't they know I'm far too busy trying to recover me?”
― Ashly Lorenzana

“When it comes to the crusty behavior of some people, give them the benefit of the doubt. They may be drowning right before your eyes, but you can't see it. And you would never ask someone to drown with a smile on his face.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, & Grumblings for Every Day of the Year

“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. Its use should be in processes of conflict and confrontation, essays in refusal. It doesn’t have to lay down the law for the law. It isn’t a stage in a programming. It is a challenge directed to what is.”
― Michel Foucault, The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984

“A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Now that I think about it, it seems to me that’s what Idiocy is: the ability to be enthusiastic all the time about anything you like, so that a drawing on the wall does not have to be diminished by the memory of the frescoes of Giotto in Padua.”
― Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

“Many scholars forget, it seems to me, that our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding. The trouble is that very few of their laborious explanations stick in the memory. The mind drops them as a branch drops its overripe fruit. ... Again and again I ask impatiently, "Why concern myself with these explanations and hypotheses?" They fly hither and thither in my thought like blind birds beating the air with ineffectual wings. I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men.”
― Helen Keller

“You'd challenge me and lose. You know it, I know it, but you'd still do it. Sometimes your sense of honor confuses the hell out of me.”
― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

“When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.”
― Judith Martin

“Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you’ve got a pretty neck”
― Eli Wallach

“Making judgments on films is in many ways so peculiarly vaporous an occupation that the only question is why, beyond the obvious opportunities for a few lectures fees and a little careerism at a dispiritingly self-limiting level, anyone does it in the first place.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album

“The Author To Her Book


Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst vulgars may'st thou roam.
In critic's hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.”
― Anne Bradstreet, The Works of Anne Bradstreet

“She turned to examine Dr. Breed, looking at him with helpless reproach. She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“Still the voices of your critics. Listen intently to your own voice, to the person who knows you best. Then answer these questions: Do you think you should move ahead? How will you feel if you quit pursuing this thing you want to do? And what does your best self advise? What you hear may change your life.”
― Steve Goodier

“I had people saying 'it's all in your head'. Do you honestly think I want to feel this way?”
― Sonia Estrada

“When poetry becomes synonymous with examination stress, it is unsurprising that readers abandon it once formal education ends.”
― Alok Mishra

“Insanity is a direct and appropriate response to the coercive inauthenticity of society ... it is an act, expressing the intention of the insane person to meet and overcome to coercive situation; and whether or not it succeed in this intention, it is at least an act of criticism which exposes the true nature of society”
― Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity

“Poetry is frequently introduced as an object of dissection rather than an experience of encounter. Students are trained to hunt for metaphors, symbols, and devices before they are allowed to feel the poem. This premature intellectualisation breeds anxiety rather than appreciation.”
― Alok Mishra

“دعوة علماء الدين إلى أن يكونوا رسل الديمقراطية الإسلامية بالسعي لتعديل مابين طبقات الناس من الفروق الشاسعة”
― مصطفى صبري, موقف العقل والعلم والعالم من رب العالمين وعباده المرسلين

“Criticism demands infinitely more culture than artistic creation.”
― Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

“It is a poor critic who says that a lack of effect on them implies all others are insincere in their love.”
― Kieron Gillen

“When someone offers you lines like that, he must be Mephistopheles and you must be Faust. You know you shouldn't succumb to such language, but you succumb.”
― William Logan

“من الناس من يتخذ من المناصب الحكومية طبقات في العلم يوشك من ارتقاها مرة ألا يصعد إلية صوت ناقد”
― مصطفى صبري, موقف العقل والعلم والعالم من رب العالمين وعباده المرسلين

“If we wear our worst reviews like a backpack, they travel with us.”
― Jennifer Love Hewitt, The Day I Shot Cupid: Hello, My Name Is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I'm a Love-aholic

“Insofar as the theorist wins, therefore, by constructing an increasingly closed and terrifying machine, to that very degree he loses, since the critical capacity of his work is thereby paralysed, and the impulses of negation and revolt, not to speak of those of social transformation, are increasingly perceived as vain and trivial in the face of the model itself.”
― Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

“As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain sublime assurance of success, but as soon as honied words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1820-1824

“Kerouac lacks discipline, intelligence, honesty and a sense of the novel. His rhythms are erratic, his sense of character is nil, and he is as pretentious as a rich whore, sentimental as a lollypop.”
― Norman Mailer