"What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism."

Criticism, Help, Trying, Years

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"What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism."

Exlpore more Criticism quotes

"He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals."

Henry Miller, American Author

Criticism, Science, Religion, Nationalism, Patriotism

"Some poems are written great, some poems are written swell. But then there are poems that could win a prize in Hell."

Stanley Victor Paskavich, American Politician

Criticism, Poetry, Quality, Humor

"Learn to brush off criticism as easily as you brush aside hollow compliments."

Richelle E. Goodrich, American Poet

Criticism, Wisdom, Truth, Inspirational, Regret

"Many reviews are useless because, while purporting to condemn the book, they only reveal the reviewer's dislike of the kind to which it belongs. Let bad tragedies be censured by those who love tragedy, and bad detective stories by those who love the detective story. Then we shall learn their real faults. Otherwise we shall find epics blamed for not being novels, farces for not being high comedies, novels by James for lacking the swift action of Smollett. Who wants to hear a particular claret abused by a fanatical teetotaller, or a particular woman by a confirmed misogynist?"

C. S. Lewis, British Author

Criticism, Love, Perception

"One of the main reasons and excuses behind every religious failure is a FALSE PROMISE."

M.F. Moonzajer, Afghan Author

Criticism, Religion, Failure, Falsehood

"I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen."

Henry Miller, American Author

Criticism, America, Chance, Old

"Some who have read the book, or at any rate reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no reason to complain, since I have similar opinions of their work, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer."

J. R. R. Tolkien, English Novelist

Criticism, Writing, Work

"People have boldness to criticize but not to sensitize."

Amit Kalantri, Indian Author

Criticism, Boldness, Sensitivity, People

"Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse."

Christopher Hitchens, American Author

Criticism, Religion, Power, History, Truth

"To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own."

Henry James, American Writer

Criticism, Possession

Explore more quotes by Philip Pullman

"If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day."

Writing

"Blake said Milton was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. I am of the Devil's party and know it."

Literature

"I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you say, I'll always be thinking about it, and if I end up doing that, I'll feel resentful because it'll feel as I didn't have a choice, and if I don't do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else."

Philosophy

"If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart."

Science

"The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one translation alone is to put robin redbreast in a cage."

Storytelling

"One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which the did happen."

Possibility

"I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world."

Belief

"He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed."

Violence

"When you stopped believing in God,' he went on, 'did you stop believing in good and evil?''No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels."

Philosophy

"She delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her."

Nature