Critical Appraisal Quotes

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide.

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

Real science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else's position.

A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity.

Any one who chooses will set up for a literary critic, though he cannot tell us where he went to school, or how much time was spent in his education, and knows nothing about letters at all.

I get a great laugh from artists who ridicule the critics as parasites and artists manqués — sucha horrible joke. I can’t imagine a more perfect art form, a moreperfect career than criticism. I can’t imagine anything more valuableto do.

I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.

A critic at best is a waiter at the great table of literature.

The function of criticism should not be confused with the function of reform.

Criticism occupies the lowest place in the literary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards moral value, incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics, which at least require a certain inventiveness.

The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work.

I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.

Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.

Ours is an age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected.

You find very few critics who approach their job with a combination of information and enthusiasm and humility that makes for a good critic. But there is nothing wrong with critics as long as people don't pay any attention to them. I mean, nobody wants to put them out of a job and a good critic is not necessarily a dead critic. It's just that people take what a critic says as a fact rather than an opinion, and you have to know whether the opinion of the critic is informed or uninformed, intelligent of stupid -- but most people don't take the trouble.

Criticism, though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity, has not yet attained the certainty and stability of science.

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

A critic is a gong at a railroad crossing clanging loudly and vainly as the train goes by.

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.

One of the greatest creations of the human mind is the art of reviewing books without having read them.

When poets go off the boil, they sound like bumble bees; when critics do, they sound like sewing machines.

It's enormously cheering to get a good review by someone who seems to understand your work.