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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!

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

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.

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.

Reviewers are usually people who would have been, poets, historians, biographer, if they could. They have tried their talents at one thing or another and have failed; therefore they turn critic.

Critics, at least generally, want to regard works of fiction as independent entities, whose virtues and failures must be reckoned apart from the circumstances of their creation, and even apart from the intentions of their creator.

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

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

Most books reviews aren't very well-written. They tend to be more about the reviewer than the book.