Accomplished Quote by Jean de la Bruyere

The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside

— Samuel Johnson

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

— Anonymous

Criticism is now become mere hangman's work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their…

— John Dryden

“When the critic has said everything in his power about a literary text, he has still said nothing; for the very existence of literature…

— Todorov Tzvetan

“Criticism as a form of knowledge is capable of robbing literature not only of its own implicit and explicit ideology but of its ideas…

— Toni Morrison

What good is a writer if he can't destroy literature? And us... what good are we if we don't help as much as we…

— Julio Cortazar

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Deconstruction glorifies the critic, humiliates the author, and makes the reader wonder why he bothered.

— Mason Cooley

“But in those whom no necessity forces to turn Author, who merely write for fame, and have full leisure to polish their compositions, faults…

— Matthew Lewis

If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.

— Charles Baudelaire

Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has no duty…

— Gao Xingjian

“Most modern literary criticism is literary and nothing else—that is, it concentrates on an author's style and thinks it rather vulgar to notice his…

— George Orwell