Pastoral Resources

The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife - a tyrannical midwife.

Somehow I took whatever criticism there was very much to heart.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, - though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, - the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.

This issue, if not addressed, leaves any President, including George Bush, open to the criticism that they are essentially ignoring the destruction of the nation and I believe that with all my heart.

Dramatic experience is not logical; it may be subdued to the kind of coherence that we indicate when we speak, in criticism, of form.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

I think that's unjustified criticism. We have had a number of measures in place in this country for several years to mitigate the possibility of mad cow spreading in this country. We have found a single case.

We've got a daunting enough task to provide a definitive account of what happened in 9/11, without fear or favor, something that will last and will survive criticism over time. And we think we can do that with integrity in a bipartisan report.

It would be very easy for us to do a collection that everybody would like and not criticize. But criticism is a part of life. You have to take it.

Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism.

In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.