Critics Quotes - Page 5

• You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Abuse, Criticism

  On literary criticism, in James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. 409 (25 June 1763)

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• Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Stupid, Race, Despair

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Illustrated)”, p.946, Delphi Classics

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• An art critic is someone who hopes to see his ideas translated to canvas without having to learn how to paint.

  Robert Breault

  Art, Ideas, Canvas

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• I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.

  Victor Hugo

  Criticism, Verses

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• That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.

  Oscar Wilde

  Philosophy, Real, Soul

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.365, University of Chicago Press

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• Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.

  John Berger

  Mean, Cutting, Past

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• critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Trying, Please, Boast

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.45, University of Georgia Press

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• No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Determination, Degrees, Fascinating

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• What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films.

  Billy Wilder

  Dirty, Naughty, Lust

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• I get out my work and have a show for myself before I have it publicly. I make up my own mind about it-how good or bad or indifferent it is. After that, the critics can write what they please. I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.

  Georgia O'Keeffe

  Writing, Mind, Criticism

  Georgia O'Keeffe (1977). “Georgia O'Keeffe”, Viking Pr

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• The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure contumely without resentment.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Lying, Greatness, Criticism

  "A Message to Garcia: And Other Classic Success Writings".

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• There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Men, Race

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.16

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• Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world - though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

  Laurence Sterne

  Hypocrite, Hypocrisy, Criticism

  'Tristram Shandy' (1759-67) bk. 3, ch. 12

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• Critics are like pigs at the pastry cart.

  John Updike

  Past, Pigs, Carts

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• A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Drama, Criticism, Theatre

  'Tynan Right and Left' (1967) foreword

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• Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck.

  Eli Wallach

  Beauty, Sarcastic, Sarcasm

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• 

  Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.1250, Faber & Faber

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• It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Art, Criticism, Born

  Charles Baudelaire, Jonathan Mayne (1981). “Art in Paris 1845-1862: salons and other exhibitions”

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• Abuse if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.

  Tacitus

  Abuse, Criticism, Irritated

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• I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sorry, Apology, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.128, Courier Corporation

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• Critics have their purposes, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what they did.

  Duke Ellington

  Music, Thinking, Should Have

  Mark Tucker, Duke Ellington (1995). “The Duke Ellington Reader”, p.334, Oxford Paperbacks

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• The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

  William Faulkner

  Art, Powerful, Writing

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

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• Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Criticism, Praise, Standards

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• I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Thinking, Modesty

  Ernest Hemingway, Carlos Baker (2003). “Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961”, p.515, Simon and Schuster

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• What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Blessed, Writing, Criticism

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Professor At The Breakfast Table”, p.25, Reprint Services Corporation

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