Christopher Morley Quotes

We criticize a man or a book most sharply when we sketch out their ideal.

Criticism even should not be without its charms. When quite devoid of all amenities, it is no longer literary.

Criticism is like many other things, it drags along after what has already been said and doesn't get out of its rut.

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.

Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.

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

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.

But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up.

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

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

The critic should describe, and not prescribe.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

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.

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.

Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.

For critics, as they are birds of prey, have ever a natural inclination to carrion.

Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their plowing of the soil. The horse works, all its muscles drawn tight like the strings on a double-bass, and a fly settles on his flanks and tickles and buzzes. And what does the fly buzz about? It scarcely knows itself; simply because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'Look, I too am living on the earth. See, I can buzz, too, buzz about anything.'

The eyes of critics, whether in commending or carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's.

If you pay attention to good critics, you have to listen to the bad. So you have to ignore them all really. You can't just cherry pick the glowing ones.

No man can be criticised but by a greater than he. Do not, then, read the reviews.

The practice of "reviewing"... in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism.

Worship the spirit of criticism. If reduced to itself it is not an awakener of ideas or a stimulant to great things, but, without it, everything is fallible; it always has the last word.

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

Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.

If we want a book to do more than what it does, that's a condemnation. If we want it to do more of what it does, that's an endorsement.