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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!

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.

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

The critic is genius at one remove; he is not unlike an actor on the stage, and incarnates in his mind, as the actor embodies in his person, another's work; only thus does he understand art, realize it, know it; and having arrived at this, his task is done.

I wouldn't call myself a 'literary critic,' just a book reviewer.

The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

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

The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.