Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes

Criticism is part of being in the marketplace. If you can't take a bit of criticism, you shouldn't bother publishing a book.

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.

It's like these songs are your babies and you don't want anybody to think your babies are ugly! You never really know until you throw it out there if it's gonna take.

You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.

I find putting oneself out there difficult. I think writing and sharing writing require different skill sets. I want to be read, but it takes courage to ask someone to read your work.

Most people say, "Show, don't tell," but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they're like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do.

Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying 'Listen to me'.

If I'm a lousy writer, then an awful lot of people have lousy taste.

As nobody can possibly tell me whether one's writing is bad or good, the only certain value is one's own pleasure. I am sure of that.

I know well enough that very few people who are supposedly interested in writing are interested in writing well. They are interested in publishing something, and if possible in making a "killing." They are interested in being a writer not in writing. . . If this is what you are interested in, I am not going to be much use to you.

If you just sit there, and you're a writer, you're bound to write crap. A lot of American writing is crap. And a lot of American writers are professionals.

I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.

You can't ever approach a book as a complete virgin, certainly not if you're a critic. There is a lot of bad faith out there. That's why I finally trained myself not to look at this stuff anymore, because it doesn't do me any good to see myself either praised or attacked.

Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.

I would rather a sex tape make its way out than a video of me doing all of the different grunt sounds. I'm not eager for a sex tape to leak, but in terms of personal humiliation, I'd feel less vulnerable to be in a Kim Kardashian situation than seeing myself grunting in a booth.

I feel that the task of criticizing my poetry is best left to others (i.e. critics) and would much rather have it take place after I am dead. If at all.

As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me.

I would feel really dishonest writing a song that was really sassy, or really confident, because I'm not a supremely confident being. I think that's what people find interesting about what I do; it's very different lyrically.

That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he has published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it.

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

You can't expect that, after a poor fellow has written a book, he should also understand it.

Writing is not chewing your nails and picking your teeth, but a matter of public interest.

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

The hardest things to do in any art is to risk failure and put yourself out on the line.

one can never be sure whether it's good poetry or bad acid