Gilbert K. Chesterton Quotes

Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge--criticism however is only the result of good sense, taste and judgment--three qualities that indeed seldom are found together, and extremely seldom in a pedant, which most critics are.

Critics stopped being relevant when they stopped writing to inform and contextualize, and when they started writing to signal who they are, to display their identity by their stance on what they are writing about. Criticism should never be about the critic, but thats what it has become, and that’s why no one cares about them anymore.

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

The best critics do not worry about what the author might think. That would be like a detective worrying about what a suspect might think. Instead, they treat the reader as an intelligent friend, and describe the book as honestly, and as entertainingly, as possible.

I'm not going to get into the writer's skills or what he was trying to portray because that's not fair. I can only say what I felt was trying to be portrayed there.

I think the criticism that I take to heart is from other writers that I respect.

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

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.

Literary criticism has about it neither rigour nor proof. Where it is honest, it is passionate, private experience seeking to persuade.

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.

This editor is a critic. He has pulled out his carving-knife and his tomahawk and is starting after a book which he is going to have for breakfast.

I still found literary criticism to be a suspect activity

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave.

Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.

Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all.

One of Walt Whitman's best-known poems is this one: When I heard the learn'd astronomer,.... The trouble is, Whitman is talking through his hat, but the poor soul didn't know any better

I am itching to criticize some well-regarded writers' works, but I am not doing it because I am perfectly aware that my critique could easily be reduced to envy or just plain meanness.

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

Criticism per se does not worry me. I've always solicited it as part of the design process.

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

It is a fallacy to think that carping is the strongest form of criticism: the important work begins after the artist's mistakes have been pointed out, and the reviewer can't put it off indefinitely with sneers, although some neophytes might be tempted to try: "When in doubt, stick out your tongue" is a safe rule that never cost one any readers. But there's nothing strong about it, and it has nothing to do with the real business of criticism, which is to do justice to the best work of one's time, so that nothing gets lost.

A critic is a lug-worm in the liver of literature.

Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend, not only the best, but all the good, that has been known and thought and written in the world.

A great deal of contemporary criticism reads to me like a man saying, 'Of course I do not like green cheese. I am very fond of brown sherry.