I much prefer a compliment, even if insincere, to sincere criticism.

The truth is not that we need the critics in order to enjoy the authors, but that we need the authors in order to enjoy the critics.

I despise the phony, fancy-pants rhetoric of professors aping jargon-filled European locutions – which have blighted academic film criticism for over 30 years.

Criticism is something you can easily avoid — by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

I find it a challenge to cooperate in a society where it’s considered moral to critique a résumé yet immoral to critique morality.

The Church being what she is cannot have the instincts of a gentleman.

I whirled in the room like a tornado wearing a tracksuit. I wasn’t wearing a tracksuit, but I did have a smirk like a zipper. I loved her like my fly was open to criticism.

Pensar que la literatura entre nosotros llega al pueblo es una mentira: el pueblo no sabe leer, y si sabe aún no puede ir más allá de los comics y las fotonovelas; además, el libro...

Anyone who finds himself incapable of grasping the complexities of a work hides his withdrawal behind the most superficial pretext because he has not gotten past the surface.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

When you start listening to side talks, you begin to behave like a child, and you must kill the child to sustain the man, the man is always overlooking and philosophical.

What he imagines evokes nothing imaginary, it evokes the reality of the world that experience and reason treat in a confused manner.

Lie naked on the table, and let them cut. Criticism is surgery, and humility is the anesthetic that allows you to tolerate it. In the end, the process will make you a stronger, more flexible,...

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.

[The critic] serves up his erudition in strong doses; he pours out all the knowledge he got up the day before in some library or other, and treats in heathenish fashion people at whose feet...

[But his style was always a lightning rod for criticism.] He was as tough and as competitive as you get in politics, … He played a very hard-nosed game. He did what worked.

His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend. His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract.

If God has given you a mission, you must be tough enough to handle what people say and still not be distracted while doing what you were created to do. Are you tough enough? God...

Nobody will ever tell you who praised you but everybody would want to be the first to tell you who criticized you.

When sonneteering Wordsworth re-creates the landing of Mary Queen of Scots at the mouth of the Derwent -Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore- he...

A clever schoolboy’s reaction to his reading is most naturally expressed by parody or imitation.

Herr Kafka, essen Sie keine Eier.” (As one and only piece of dialog K recalls from his meeting with Rudolf Steiner – “Mr. Kafka don’t eat eggs.

It’s far easier to write why something is terrible than why it’s good. If you’re reviewing a film and you decide “This is a movie I don’t like,” basically you can take every element of...

Without self-discipline, your streams of grace become a flood of disgrace. Never let indiscipline weigh you down for critics to pick mockeries on.

To listen to criticism and act on it if it is valid and ignore it if it is not is a sign of intelligence.

The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.

In his book Real Presences, George Steiner asks us to “imagine a society in which all talk about the arts, music and literature is prohibited.” In such a society there would be no more essays...

Dare to risk public criticism.

A great truth wants to be criticized not idolized

I’ve had trouble with criticism, I guess. It’s hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

When it comes to the crusty behavior of some people, give them the benefit of the doubt. They may be drowning right before your eyes, but you can’t see it. And you’d never ask someone...

Criticism is going to come while you’re injured, but you just have to work through it, stay mentally tough … I think he has something to prove this year.

Nothing ruins a good thing quite like knowing you share your opinions with mindless little tits.

The net has provided a level playing field for criticism and comment – anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion – and that is one of its greatest strengths.

Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.

I have tonight begun reading a stupid, shitty book by Kerouac called Big Sur, and I would give a ball to wake up tomorrow on some empty ridge with a herd of beatniks grazing in...

People have boldness to criticize but not to sensitize.

I only accept and pay attention to feedback from people who are also in the arena. If you’re occasionally getting your butt kicked as you respond, and if you’re also figuring out how to stay...

My only criticism is that there is too much weight loss in the first two weeks. When it goes into the other phases of the diet, it is OK.

The aim is to love God because the pure heart loves loving God and because the true mind knows He deserves it. Unlike the accusations and beliefs of the critics and skeptics, it is neither...

Many scholars forget, it seems to me, that our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding. The trouble is that very few of...

A common fallacy in much of the adverse criticism to which science is subjected today is that it claims certainty, infallibility and complete emotional objectivity. It would be more nearly true to say that it...

Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything

If yourhands are tied towardsanyone who’s in need ofa helping hand, let yourtangue also be tied

Anaemia is an illness primarily affecting characters in novels.

There is a common tendency to turn off one’s imagination at certain points and refuse to contemplate the possibility of having to do certain things and cope with the attendant moral problems. The things simply...

As uncomfortable as it might be, I refuse to let the comfort of being agreed with suffocate my opinions.