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.
A louse in the locks of literature.
Criticism should awaken our attention, not inflame our anger. We should listen to, and not flee from, those who contradict us. Truth should be our cause, no matter in what manner it comes to us.
I embrace the criticism, because ultimately (it means) the masses have seen it [my movie]. I embrace it for my father's story, for my mother's story, for my auntie, for my grandmother, who all got their teeth knocked out so I could be [where I am].
Even after the Rosenthal column, nobody responsible in the Republican Party said, 'Yes, Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite. ' They didn't join in. Very few journalists joined in. What happened was, when he entered the presidential politics, then he entered a new level of criticism and attack on him.
The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.
For many years I have devoted articles and essays to newspapers, from the inside. So criticism of the newspapers was a topic that I practiced for a long time.
One of the functions of literary criticism, or reviewing, generally - and I, most of my reviews actually are not about literature - but one of the functions of that is basically the sort of Consumer Reports function of letting readers know whether this is something they want to read.
Poststructuralism. . . . is a form of literary criticism that uses elaborate wordplay to prove its central premise, that all language is internally contradictory and has no fixed meaning.
In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre; they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc.
Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn. If he lives with hostility, he learn s to fight. If a child lives with shame, he learn to fell ashamed.
I love constructive criticism.
I release all criticism. I only give out that which I wish to receive in return. My love and acceptance of others is mirrored to me in every moment.
We read critics for the perceptions, for what they tell us that we didn't fully grasp when we saw the work. The judgments we can usually make for ourselves.
I like art history and art criticism. Leo Steinberg has always been my favorite. Hes very original, very accurate and acute.
In all institutions from which the cold wind of open criticism is excluded, an innocent corruption begins to grow like a mushroom - for example, in senates and learned societies
I'm a fan of Hugh Kenner, Richard Ellman, Lionel Trilling and Frank Kermode. All these people have taught me how to read - but perhaps, above all literary critics, I'm indebted to Wayne Booth (several people have suggested to me that I'm trying to reinvent "ethical criticism").
I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so.
Even before 911 I was gripped by a sense of dread: our lack of criticism about what we were doing in the Middle East - the slagging off of a whole religious tradition.