Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Critics have a problem with sentimentality. Readers do not. I write for readers.
Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.
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.
I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.
Critics for established venues are vetted by editors; they usually demonstrate a certain objectivity; and they come with known backgrounds and specialized knowledge.
As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.
Critics are not creators. They rarely write great novels, invent new technologies, or come up with a great business idea.
It's not the journalists; it's the critics that I can't understand. I've never understood what kind of a person would want to criticize someone else's work.
I think critics are very useful. But I think that they, in a way, betray their position when they stop people looking for themselves.
Any one who chooses will set up for a literary critic, though he cannot tell us where he went to school, or how much time was spent in his education, and knows nothing about letters at all.