John Steinbeck Quotes

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

The most accomplished literary work would be reduced to nothing by carping criticism, if the author would listen to all critics and allow every one to erase the passage which pleases him the least.

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.

Literature, of course, is not a contest.

I don't read the critics.

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.

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.

Once people write criticism about something - and even in 1967 I was far from alone - they're assuming it's art, and art is supposed to last.

If someone doesn't like your fiction, it's really insulting.

... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bullyher, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

Anybody is qualified, according to everybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chemistry and mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka. But then these are more serious things.

Critics are more committed to the rules of art than artists are.

The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.

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

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

We just write down a bunch of words, and pray to god they make sense. And if we don't, it doesn't matter, we're artists.

If you don't like my book, write your own.

I don't care about my "impact" - I only care about the theater as an art form and criticism as an act of writing.

[O]ne can scarcely be frightened off writing what one wants to write for fear an obscure reviewer should patronise one on that account.

If the work of art is good enough, it must not be criticized for its theme. I don't think it can be argued.

Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces.

Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings.