Critic Quotes - page 2

The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men's genius. (George Steiner)

Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart.

William Wordsworth

Never pay any attention to what critics say...Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!

Jean Sibelius

Be your own worst critic. When things go wrong it's tempting to shift the blame. Don't. Accept responsibility. People will appreciate it, and you will find out what you're capable of.

Paul Arden

If I were less than honest as a critic, I think people would spot that right away, and it would destroy my credibility.

Leonard Maltin

I've been all over the world and I've never seen a statue of a critic.

Leonard Bernstein

I usually take no notice of reviews unless a critic has thought up some new way of describing me. That old one about the way I sleep my way through pictures is so hackneyed now.

Robert Mitchum

The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that minister to it is one of the highest distinctions... In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of the artist, a torchbearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother... Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument.

Henry James

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

Raymond Chandler

The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.

Raymond Chandler

He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative. (G. K. Chesterton)

Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

Ambrose Bierce

A critic recently described me, with deadly acuteness, as having 'a kindly dislike of my fellow-creatures.' Perhaps dread would have been nearer the mark than dislike; for man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

George Bernard Shaw

I am strongly convinced that the people or society is the best and the most unerring critic.

Vissarion Belinsky

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?

Christian Slater

Now, get this as a technical fact, not a hopeful idea. Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes for which that person or group could be imprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts.

L. Ron Hubbard

If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic.

Edward Albee

We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it.

Kingsley Amis

Damien Hirst's Mother and Child Divided (1993) is a work which can at first glance be read as nothing more than two brutally severed carcasses. "A freak show" was how the art critic of the Sunday Telegraph responded to its presentation in the Turner Prize in 1995. For me, the undoubted shock, even disgust provoked by the work is part of its appeal. Art should be transgressive. Life is not all sweet.

Nicholas Serota

I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the peephole that gives access to hidden treasure.

Djuna Barnes

Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me. (Jascha Heifetz)

Well, I'm not a critic, I'm just a worker. So, I'm always grateful for anything the critics say - good or bad.

Mandy Patinkin

I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, I wanna grow up and be a critic.

Richard Pryor

To deliberately criticise another individual may cause an indelible stain on the critic.

Sri Chinmoy

When modernist poetry, or what not so long ago passed for modernist poetry, can reach the stage where the following piece by Mr. Ezra Pound is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who shrinks from anything that may be labelled 'modernist' either in terms of condemnation or approbation.... Better he thinks, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame.

Laura Riding

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