Books Quote by George Steiner

In a writer there must always be two people - the writer and the critic.

— Leo Tolstoy

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!

— Brian Lumley

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature…

— Harold Bloom

A critic is a man who writes about things he doesn't like

— Anonymous

“The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.”

— D.H. Lawrence

“The critic's aim should be to interpret the work they are writing about and help readers appreciate it, by defining and analysing those qualities…

— David Cecil

“Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.”

— John Steinbeck

“Is not a critic," asks Professor Stoll, "... a judge, who does not explore his own consciousness, but determines the author's meaning or intention,…

— W.K. Wimsatt

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

— John Steinbeck

The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself.

— Anthony Trollope

For the critic, the author does not exist; only a certain number of writings exist.

— Italo Calvino

A literary critic is a person who finds meaning in literature that the author didn't know was there.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow