Salman Rushdie Quotes

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

If people aren't creating literature, there would be nothing for people to criticize.

The critic should describe, and not prescribe.

A critic is a legless man who teaches running.

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.

I know all the critics.

I disagree with everything John Updike has ever said.

We take literature too seriously.

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.

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.

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

I'm a fan of Hugh Kenner, Richard Ellman, Lionel Trilling and Frank Kermode. All these people have taught me how to read - but perhaps, above all literary critics, I'm indebted to Wayne Booth (several people have suggested to me that I'm trying to reinvent "ethical criticism").

The true work of a critic is not to make his hearer believe him, but agree with him.

REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.

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

Literature is analysis after the event.

But the truth is that critics are by definition critical. That's their job.

Critics should be looked at simply as commentators.

A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.

In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.

I liked Sartre's views but not his writing.

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.

A good novelist pays attention to his characters. A good biographer pays attention to the documents before her. A good critic pays close attention to the thing she's brought to evaluate.

What, if not Shakespeare, is open for interpretation?