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Reader Quotes

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Reader Quotes

“When you're free of editorial control, you owe it to yourself to obtain feedback from friends and readers. Some take those criticisms to heart and incorporate it into their work, and some ignore them.”

Heart Reader Criticism Feedback Editorials

Author:Scott McCloud

“Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well; the chiefest part of which is to observe those excellencies which delight a reasonable reader.”

Firsts Wells Judging Reader Standards Criticism Delight Reasonable

Book:The Works of John Dryden, Volume XII: Plays Ambboyna, The State of Innocence, Aureng-Zebe

Source: The Works of John Dryden, Volume XII: Plays Ambboyna, The State of Innocence, Aureng-Zebe

“It is a fallacy to think that carping is the strongest form of criticism: the important work begins after the artist's mistakes have been pointed out, and the reviewer can't put it off indefinitely with sneers, although some neophytes might be tempted to try: "When in doubt, stick out your tongue" is a safe rule that never cost one any readers. But there's nothing strong about it, and it has nothing to do with the real business of criticism, which is to do justice to the best work of one's time, so that nothing gets lost.”

“After all, poets shouldn't be their own interpreters and shouldn't carefully dissect their poems into everyday prose; that would mean the end of being poets. Poets send their creations into the world, it is up to the reader, the aesthetician, and the critic to determine what they wanted to say with their creations.”

World Mean Ends Wanted Poetry Creation Poet Reader Criticism Critics Everyday Determine Prose Interpreter

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.”

Ifs Should Done Stories Reading Reader Judgment Criticism Method Forgiving Sake Delight Entertainment Strict Candor Candid Good Humor

Author:Sarah Fielding

“Listen to the criticisms and preferences of your trusted "first readers".”

Firsts Reader Criticism Trusted Preference

Author:Rose Tremain

“The readers and the hearers like my books, And yet some writers cannot them digest; But what care I? for when I make a feast, I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.”

Should Book Care Reader Criticism Praise Cooks Guests

Author:John Harington

“When I write provocative social and cultural criticism that causes readers to stretch their minds, to think beyond set paradigms, I think of that work as love in action. While it may challenge, disturb and at times even frighten or enrage readers, love is always the place where I begin and end.”

Thinking Writing Mind May Ends Action Social Causes Challenges Love Is Reader Criticism Paradigm Provocative

Author:Bell Hooks

“I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report's criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash... knowing I'd remember every word.”

“As a writer of criticism, the consumer thing is the least interesting thing, but as a critic, the single worst thing you can do is send a reader to waste time and money on something - even if it's something you personally love. You have to indicate the reasons why you love it and they'll hate it.”

Ifs Reason Hate Can Do Interesting Worst Love You Reader Waste Criticism Critics Consumers Reason Why Wasting Time Worst Things Interesting Things Time And Money

Author:Jonathan Gold

“I came from the time of so-called New Criticism - the poem in itself, the writing in itself - but around that time I had come across a critic called Kenneth Burke, who wrote a book called A Rhetoric of Motives, and it seemed to talk about another way, and gradually I realized that other way was that the reader made a difference.”

Way Writing Made Book Differences Reader Criticism Critics I Realized Motive Rhetoric Another Way Kenneth

Author:Vito Acconci

“I intend Deaths in Venice to contribute both to literary criticism and to philosophy. But it's not "strict philosophy" in the sense of arguing for specific theses. As I remark, there's a style of philosophy - present in writers from Plato to Rawls - that invites readers to consider a certain class of phenomena in a new way. In the book, I associate this, in particular, with my good friend, the eminent philosopher of science, Nancy Cartwright, who practices it extremely skilfully.”

“One of the functions of literary criticism, or reviewing, generally - and I, most of my reviews actually are not about literature - but one of the functions of that is basically the sort of Consumer Reports function of letting readers know whether this is something they want to read.”

Knows Want Literature Reader Criticism Function Consumers Reports Reviews Literary Criticism

Author:Louis Menand

“A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach.”

Should Reader Criticism Should Have Critics Stomach

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel