The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.
Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee; rebuke a wise man and he will love thee.
In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.
A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.
If you are willing to take the punishment, you're halfway through the battle. That the issues may be trivial, the battle ugly, is another point.
A critic is a legless man who teaches running.
Vilify! Vilify! Some of it will always stick.
Always bring money along with your complaints.
Nature fits all her children with something to do He who would write and can't write, can surely review.
Nature, when she invented, manufactured and patented her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left.
To escape criticism - do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Any fool can criticize, and many of them do.
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.
I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.
The good critic is he who narrates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, tho' the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting.
The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights, actors and audiences - a figure dreaded, and occasionally comic, but never welcome, never loved.
A critic at best is a waiter at the great table of literature.
