488 Quotes About Critics

critics are extremely insecure. they don't really know what's going on, they're democrats when it comes to politics but fascists when it comes to culture

Critics are like pigs at the pastry cart.

Is not a critic," asks Professor Stoll, "... a judge, who does not explore his own consciousness, but determines the author's meaning or intention, as if the poem were a will, a contract, or the constitution?

And, instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemny thoughtful.

Far from being a pack of baying butchers,critics sometimes have a perverse habit of tending to the sick and wounded on the cinematic field of battle, rushing in where angels fear to tread, even when the patient is clearly without a pulse.

I want to say to the literature teacher who remains wilfully, even boastfully ignorant of a major element of contemporary fiction: you are incompetent to teach or judge your subject. Readers and students who do know the field, meanwhile, have every right to challenge your ignorant prejudice. Rise, undergraduates of the English departments! You have nothing to lose but your A on the midterm!

Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label -- to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.

Ich habe die Überzeugung gewonnen, dass Kinder das beste und klügste Publikum sind, das man sich als Geschichtenerzähler nur wünschen kann. Kinder sind strenge, unbestechliche Kritiker."[As quoted on Preußler's official website.]

Procrastination threatens critics’ livelihood.