Peter Greenaway Quotes

Many poets, as you know, are not good readers.

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.

Men of great talents, whether poets or historians, seldom escape the attacks of those who, without ever favoring the world with any production of their own, take delight in criticising the works of others.

Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,--they are better critics than authors.

I guess the important thing for young writers is to read.

Mediocrity is more dangerous in a critic than in a writer.

Farber had a huge effect on me as a writer. I don't mean I write like him. Farber is, first of all, a great stylist, a great writer. Anyone can read Manny Farber's film criticism, whether that person is a novelist, a poet, another critic, a historian, and learn a lot about writing by reading him.

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

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

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

I learned that lesson a long time ago. When you write popular fiction you're going to get bashed by critics.

I don't think it's always good to read lots of poetry.

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

In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.

I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

There's no end to the inventiveness of critics, I tell you. Because they can't write fiction, they put their impulse into their analysis of work.

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

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.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

I was taught Shakespeare brilliantly by an eccentric genius at Harrow named Jeremy Lemmon who made me want to be a writer.