Copyright 1985-2008 MCR Agency, LLC All Rights Reserved. www.quotations.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 CRITICS Page 30 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Essence 214 Criticism is prejudice made plausible. H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) 215 Taking to pieces is the trade of those who cannot construct. Emerson (1803-1882) 216 You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and the arts. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) Lothair, Vol. II, Chapter 4 217 Time is the only critic without ambition. John Steinbeck (1902-1968) 218 The more the book is drawn into notice, the more exposed it becomes to criticism and remark. Fanny Burney (1752-1840) Quoted in "Writings on Writing," edited by Thomas Brennan 219 Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) Kavanagh 220 A critic is at best a waiter at the great table of literature. Louis Dudek (b. 1918) 2. Opposites 221 Writing criticism is to writing fiction as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea. John Updike (b. 1932) Hugging the Shore ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 CRITICS Page 31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 222 If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators. Hazlitt (1778-1830) 223 Hard to lay down, but easy not to pick up. Malcolm Cowley (born 1898) 224 Her books were put down by most critics but readers would not put down her books. Gene Shalit 225 Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 226 He is forced to be literate about the illiterate, witty about the witless and coherent about the incoherent. John Crosby (1912-1991) 227 He has no reputation as a historian to lose, and [his historical book] can only enhance his standing as a writer of fiction. Albert Cowdrey (b. 1933) on James Bacque's book "Other Losses" 228 This is not at all bad, except as prose. Gore Vidal (b. 1925) on "The Winds of War" by Herman Wouk 229 Never did any author precipitate himself from such heights of thought to so low expressions, as he often does. He is the very Janus of poets; he wears, almost everywhere, two faces: and you have scarce begun to admire the one, e'er you despise the other. Dryden (1631-1700) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 CRITICS Page 32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 230 From my close observation of writers (almost all my friends are writers), they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) 231 I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur'd, not as bad but new: While if our Elders break all reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon but Applause. Pope (1688-1744) Second Book of Horace. Ep.I. L.115 232 Her [Edith Sitwell] maiden voyage was a lonely one, and it lasted all her life. Victoria Glendinning A Unicorn Among Lions 3. Insight 233 Harte, in a mild and colorless way, was that kind of man - that is to say, he was a man without a country; no, not a man - man is too strong a term; he was an invertebrate without a country. Mark Twain (1835-1910) 234 His vocabulary was large, fluent, eloquent, but it was excessive, inaccurate, and unliterary. He wrote too easily, and at too great length, his pen sometimes running away from him, and from his readers. Richard Stoddard (1825-1903) 235 He uses a lot of big words, and his sentences run from here back to the airport. Carolyn Chute NY Times, 1985 236 Her sentences march under a harsh sun that bleaches color from them but bestows a peculiar, invigorating, Pascalian clarity. John Updike (b. 1932) On Muriel Spark's "The Only Problem," New Yorker, 1984 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 CRITICS Page 33 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 237 Her novels read now like a single continuing work with the same heroine and the same single, persistent, disconnected disaster of a life in which only four things can be relied on: loneliness, fear, booze, and lack of money. Alfred Alvarez (b. 1929) The Observer (1979) 238 We could pardon his cheerless themes were it not for the imperturbable solemnity with which he piles the unnecessary on the commonplace. Joseph Conrad (1857-1934) Literature (1898) 239 Never did I see such apparatus get ready for thinking, and so little thought. He mounts scaffolding, pulleys, and tackles, gather all the tools in the neighborhood with labor, with noise, demonstration, precept, and sets - three bricks. Carlyle (1795-1881) 240 The dominant rhetoric is academese relieved by flashes of cliche. Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982) on the NY Times Book Review, Newsweek 1964 241 There are too many ironies in the fire. John Leonard (b. 1939) On Gore Vidal's "Two Sisters," NY Times 1970 242 Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes. E. B. White (1899-1985) Tribute to James Thurber, New Yorker '61 243 His imagination resembles the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar. Macaulay (1800-1859) Essays ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 CRITICS Page 34 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 244 A great many clever critics who are more concerned with displaying their intellectual numbness than with maintaining any critical standards try to gain a reputation for wit by poking fun at unfamiliar excellence. John Press (b. 1920) The Chequer'd Shade 245 Let criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. Washington Irving (1783-1859) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 246 Professional reviewers read so many bad books in the course of duty that that they get an unhealthy craving for arresting phrases. Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) 247 One cannot attack a bad book without showing off. Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) The Dryer's Hand 248 Insects sting, not from malice but because they want to live. It is the same with critics - they desire our blood, not pain. Nietzsche (1844-1900) Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions 249 Like most poets, preachers, and metaphysicians, he burst into conclusions at a spark of evidence. Henry Seidel Canby (1878-1961) Classical Americans 250 [On another writer's two-line poem:] Very nice, though there are dull stretches. Antoine de Rivaroli (1753-1801) 251 His poems were strewn with wild, organic, telescoped images underneath which, perhaps, ran a submerged stream of poetic thought. Robert Graves (1895-1985) The Long Weekend ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 CRITICS Page 35 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 252 Why don't you write books people can read? Nora Joyce (1882-1941) to her husband James 253 There are some books which cannot be adequately reviewed for twenty or thirty years after they come out. John Morley (1838-1923) Recollections 254 Ever since there have been book reviews nobody reads books, except reviewers, and even they do it sloppily. Goethe (1749-1832) 255 One always tends to overpraise a long book because one has got through it. E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Aspects of the Novel 256 When reading a scholarly critic, one profits more from his quotations than from his comments. Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) The Dyer's Hand, "Reading" 257 Some men kiss and do not tell; they are called gentlemen. Some men tell but do not kiss; they are called liars. Some men kiss and tell; they are called best-sellers writers. Time Magazine On Roger Vadim's "Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda," 1967 258 You love to diagnose and prescribe for your characters who are obviously your patients. And like every good physician you end in putting all of them to death. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) 259 As I shamble aghast into the prime of life, I wonder what kind of dossier the Great Critic of Them All is compiling for me, Up There. Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980) Tynan Right and Left ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 CRITICS Page 36 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 260 The actual definition of reviewmanship is now, I think, stabilized. In its shortest form it is "How to be one-up on the author without actually tampering with the text." In other words, how, as a critic, to show that it is really you yourself who should have written the book, if you had had the time, and since you hadn't you are glad that someone else has, although obviously it might have been done better. Stephen Potter (1900-1969) 261 Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, etc., if they could: they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics. Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849) Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton 262 Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves. Brendan Behan (1923-1964) 263 Characters drop into whorehouses, have a little sex between paragraphs and leave without advancing the plot. Rhoda Koening On Gore Vidal's "Lincoln" 264 He is able to turn an unplotted, unworkable manuscript into an unplotted and unworkable manuscript with a lot of sex. Tom Volpe on popular novelist Harold Robbins 265 For my own part, I can rarely tell whether his characters are making love or playing tennis. Joseph Kraft (1924-1986) on novelist William Faulker's writing 266 Faulkner's characters impose their nightmare reality upon you because they are built out of truths, the truths of the stirrings of the flesh and blood and passion or real men. John Dos Passos (1896-1970) Occasions and Protests ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 CRITICS Page 37 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Positive 267 I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) Essays in Criticism: First Series I 268 Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives. Vincent Canby (b. 1924) NY Times, 1980 269 Metaphorically these essays move as a quiet but observant coast-guard cutter among the rocks and islands up and down the littoral of our life. David McCord (1897-1997) On J. B. Priestley's "Essays of Five Decades," NY Times 270 The revelation of an overlooked genius is always a pleasure, since it reveals not only the excellence of our own taste but also the obtuseness of someone else. Anna Mary Wells (b. 1906) American Literature, Vol. I 271 Shakespeare frightens me the more I think of him. In their entirety, I find his works stupendous, exalting, like the idea of the planetary system. I only see an immensity there, dazzling and bewildering to the eye. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) 272 Actors yearn for the perfect director, athletes for the perfect coach, priests for the perfect pope, presidents for the perfect historian. Writers hunger for the perfect reviewer. Thomas Fleming The War between Writers and Reviewers, NY Times Magazine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 CRITICS Page 38 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 273 The theory is that if a famous author says another author is terrific, the public, sheeplike, will line up and buy the book in question. William Cole (b. 1919) New York Times Book Review, July 23, 1978 274 Hemingway was, without any question, the greatest; he had a poet's feeling for words, economy. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) Playboy 275 Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship. Zeuxis (c. 400 B.C.) 276 I do not resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it parts for the time with reality. Winston Churchill (1874-1965) 277 There is nothing like a good negative review to sell a book. Hugh Barbour (b. 1921) 278 There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife. Stephen Spender (1909-1995) NY Times, 1984 279 It is essentially a book of today. It is alive and warm. It is brutal with life. It is written of sweat, and blood and groans and tears. Jack London (1876-1916) on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle 280 I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist. Harold Bloom Newsweek '86 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 CRITICS Page 39 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 281 To be disesteemed by people you don't have much respect for is not the worst fate. Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) NY Times Magazine 5. Negative 282 I took [the book] from the reading-room. It's indescribable, enough to make you vomit. You have to read this to realize the pitifulness of money, success, and the public. Literature has become consumptive. It spits and slobbers, covers its blisters with salve and sticking-plaster, and has grown bald from too much hair-slicking. It would take Christs of Art to cure this leper. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) 283 This novel is not to be tossed gently aside, but to be hurled with great force. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) 284 He leads his readers to the latrine and locks them in. Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) of the novelist and playwright George Moore 285 He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) on Warren G. Harding, Baltimore Evening Sun, 1921 286 His style is chaos illuminated by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language. As a novelist he can do everything except tell a story. As an artist he is everything except articulate. Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) The Decay of Living, 1889 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5 CRITICS Page 40 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 287 The covers of this book are too far apart. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) 288 This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... What you will. Henry Miller (1891-1980) Tropic of Cancer 289 Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. Kurt Vonnegut (b. 1922) 290 A heterogeneous mass of bombast, egotism, vulgarity, and nonsense. Boston Intelligence on Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" 291 He seems to have...gone to his icebox, pulled out all the cold obsessions, mixed them in a bowl, beat too lightly and baked too long. John Leonard (b. 1939) On Gore Vidal's Two Sisters, NY Times '70 292 He is not really a writer, but a nonstop talker to whom someone has given a typewriter. Gerald Brenan Thought in a Dry Season 293 As a work of art, it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks. Clive James (b. 1939) on Judith Krantz's bestseller "Princess Daisy" 294 I found nothing really wrong with this autobiography except poor choice of subject. Clifton Fadiman (b. 1904) on Gertrude Stein's "Everybody's Autobiography" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5 CRITICS Page 41 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 295 One of the dullest memoirs ever to lay waste to a forest. Frank Rich On Barbara Bush's "A Memoir," NY Times 1994 296 That trees should have been cut down to provide paper for this book was an ecological affront. Anthony Blond (b. 1928) Spectator, 1983 297 ... the dullest speeches I ever heard. The...woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required. P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) The Girl in Blue, 1970 298 Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the. Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) On Lillian Hellman, NY Times, 1986 299 Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. John Osborne (b. 1929) 300 For critics, I care the five-hundred-thousandth part of the tithe of a half-farthing. Charles Lamb (1775-1834) 301 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 1792-1822 Fragments of Adonais 302 They seize upon your publications, as a wrestler seizes upon his opponent's hair, and use them to drag you down, while they themselves remain quite invulnerable, because of their barren pates - so there's nothing for you to get hold of. Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5 CRITICS Page 42 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 303 The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write. J. B. Priestley (1733-1804) Outcries and Asides 304 With a pig's eyes that never look up, with a pig snout that loves muck, with a pig's brain that knows only the sty, and with a pig's squeal that cries only when he is hurt, he sometimes opens his pig's month, tusked and ugly, and lets out the voice of God, railing at the whitewash that covers the manure about his habitat. William Allen White (1868-1944) on H.L. Mencken, 1928 305 Thou eunuch of language, thou pimp of gender, murderous accoucheur of infant learning, thou pickle-herring in the puppet show nonsense. Robert Burns (1759-1796) to a critic 306 Reviewers are, as Coleridge declared, a species of maggots, inferior to bookworms, living on the delicious brains of real genius. Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) The First Edinburgh Reviews 307 No genius was ever blasted by the breath of critics. The poison which, if confined would have burst the heart, fumes away in empty hisses. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 308 We can never know that a piece of writing is bad unless we have begun by trying to read it as if it was very good and ended by discovering that we were paying the author an undeserved compliment. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) 309 The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterance of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States. Chicago Times, on Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5 CRITICS Page 43 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 310 A true critic in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently, is apt to snarl most, when there are the fewest bones. Swift (1667-1745) A Tale of a Tub 311 I regard this novel as a work without any redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box. Ellen Goodman on Danielle Steel's Message from Nam 312 I never read a book before reviewing it. It prejudices one so. Sydney Smith (1771-1845) 313 Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) 314 Gibbon's style is detestable; but it is not the worst thing about him. Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834) Complete Works (1853) 6. Advice 315 To escape criticism - do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915) 316 In every work regard the writer's End, Since none can compass more than they intend; And if the means be just, the conduct true, Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. Pope (1688-1744) Essay on Criticism. Pt. II. L.255 317 Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible. Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) The Dyer's Hand ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 CRITICS Page 44 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 318 Friendly attacks should begin with faint praise, but be careful not to use adjectives or phrases of which the publisher can make use in advertisements. John Betjeman (1906-1984) 319 Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) "Reading" The Dyer's Hand 320 A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic. James Lowell (1819-1891) Among my Books 321 A perfect Judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit that its author writ: Survey the Whole, nor seek slight fault to find Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind. Pope (1688-1744) Essay on Criticism. Pt.II. L.255 322 Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created the tale. D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) Studies in Classic American Literature 323 Read as little as possible of literary criticism - such things are either hardened and empty of life or else they are just clever word-games. Rilke (1875-1926) 324 The only thing I most emphatically do not ask of a critic is that he tells me what I ought to approve or condemn. I have no objection to his telling me what works and authors he likes and dislikes. Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) The Dryer's Hand 325 Censorship, like charity should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there. Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7 CRITICS Page 45 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. Poetry & Prose 326 Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can't write, can surely review; Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies. James Lowell (1819-1891) Fable for Critics 327 'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill. Pope (1688-1744) An Essay on Criticism I 328 They who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite. Dryden (1631-1700) Conquest of Granada 329 Some judge of authors names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men. Pope (1688-1744) An Essay on Criticism II 330 Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, They damn those authors whom they never read. Charles Churchill (1731-1764) The Candidate 331 So, when a new book comes his way, By someone still alive to-day, Our Honest John, with right good will, Sharpens his pencil for the kill. Gerald Bullet (1893-1958) A Reviewer 332 As soon Seek roses in December - ice in June, Hope, constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; Believe a woman or an epitaph, Or any other thing that's false, before You trust in critics who themselves are sore. Byron (1788-1824) English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7 CRITICS Page 46 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 333 Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say? Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, In such a state as theirs, is downright treason. Charles Churchill (1731-1764) Apology 334 To check young Genius' proud career, The slaves who now his throne invaded, Made criticism his prime Vizier, And from that hour his glories faded. Thomas Moore (1759-1852) Genius and Criticism 335 The readers and the hearers like my books, And yet some writers cannot them digest; But what care I? For when I make a feast, I would my guest should praise it, not the cooks. Sir John Harrington 1561-1612 Against Writers that Carp at other Men's Books 336 They best can judge a poet's worth, Who oft themselves have known The pangs of a poetic birth By labors of their own. Cowper (1731-1800) To Dr. Darwin. St.2 337 Upon the work of Walter Landor I am unfit to write with candor. If you can read it, well and good; But as for me, I never could. Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) 338 A beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) Essays 8. Jokes & Humor 339 So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name. Alan Bennett 340 A critic is one who goes along for deride. L. L. Levinson ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8 CRITICS Page 47 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 341 They criticized Henry James as they might criticize a cat for not being a dog. James G. Thurber (1894-1961) The Wings of Henry James 342 A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender. Jim Bishop NY Journal-American '57 343 Critic: A panhandler. 344 If you are unhealthily addicted to reading about murder trials, this book may cure you. John Carey London Sunday Times on "Death of...Scarsdale Diet Doctor" 345 I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me. Max Reger (1873-1916)