Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

You cannot lecture on really pure poetry any more than you can talk about the ingredients of pure water-it is adulterated, methylated, sanded poetry that makes the best lectures.

If you don't know what it is, don't mess with it.

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.

To arrange a library is to practice in a quiet and modest way the art of criticism.

A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

A critic is someone who never actually goes to the battle yet who afterwards comes out shooting the wounded.

A critic is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally.

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves.

Critics are like pigs at the pastry cart.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Our civilization has been founded on the notion of criticism: there is nothing sacred or untouchable except the freedom to think. Without criticism, that is to say, without rigor and experimentation, there is no science; without criticism there is no art or literature. I would also say that without criticism there is no healthy society.