Henry Edward Manning Quotes

Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.

There are very few critics who have historical context or authority.

When a critic knows what she or he is looking at and writes revealingly about it, it's sublime.

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

I do wish that reviews were less like book reports. There was an era when reviewers had something to say about a book: when they painted context and drew conclusions. Many reviews these days are little more than plot summary.

Write about what you know, that's what I say.

Sympathy is the first condition of criticism.

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

The biographer has two lives: The one she leads, and the one she ultimately understands.

If people aren't creating literature, there would be nothing for people to criticize.

If you would judge, understand.

I don't delve too deep into reviews.

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic.

Complex things, if you don't understand them, it seems complicated. If you understand them, and we know how to handle it, it became simple.

Even though you can have a youthful energy, it doesn't mean that you can't know a lot and bring a lot to the situation.

Some critics are like chimney-sweepers; they put out the fire below, and frighten the swallows from their nests above; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing from the top of the house as if they had built it.

The best critic needn't be right, just interesting.

The paradoxical virtue of reading lies in distancing ourselves from the world so that we may make sense of it.