Criticism Quotes

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

We’re not trying to entertain the critics… I’ll take my chances with the public.

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, the people said, a weed.

It seems this is an age of clever critics who keep bewailing the fact that there are no works worthy of criticism.

In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

If a man is often the subject of comment in society, he is criticized.

Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play.

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.[La critique est au dernier échelon de la littérature, comme forme presque toujours, et comme valeur morale, incontestablement. Elle passe après le bout rimé et l’acrostiche, lesquels demandent au moins un travail d’invention quelconque.]

Criticism didn’t really stop us and it shouldn’t ever stop anyone, because critics are only the people who can’t get a record deal themselves.