214 Quotes About Literary-criticism

If you cannot judge a book by its cover, surely we should not judge an author by one book alone?

The character of Superman is a rebuttal of Lord Acton's famous dictum: he has absolute power, but it does not corrupt him. Rather, his power grants him freedom from fear. This freedom allows him to be a superman, and to realize his potential by helping others.

Reading a novel after reading semiotic theory was like jogging empty-handed after jogging with hand weights. What exquisite guilt she felt, wickedly enjoying narrative! Madeleine felt safe with a nineteenth century novel. There were going to be people in it. Something was going to happen to them in a place resembling the world. Then too there were lots of weddings in Wharton and Austen. There were all kinds of irresistible gloomy men.

As for literary criticism in general: 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 or a banana split.

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

The mimicry of passion is the most intolerable of all poses.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs."[Time Magazine, October 31, 1977]

You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something.