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878ecad
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As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.
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writing
reviewers
critics
literary-criticism
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kurt Vonnegut |
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074f6ac
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Some people insist that 'mediocre' is better than 'best.' They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.
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life
philosophy
truth
wisdom
inspirational
excellence
critics
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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554d468
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A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, and in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man's distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: 'This tower is most interesting.' But they also said (after pushing it over): 'What a muddle it is in!' And even the man's own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: 'He is such an odd fellow! Imagine using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? he had no sense of proportion.' But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea.
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literature
criticism
fantasy
beowulf
critics
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J.R.R. Tolkien |
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3170045
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You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything
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love
critics
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Gustave Flaubert |
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b17a952
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The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds
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writing
wisdom
art-criticism
music-criticism
music-journalism
critics
knowledge
writers
insight
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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71c60e3
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The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination
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criticism
imagination
genius-stupidity
nerdery
critics
art
genius
nerds
nerd
artist
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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1b4e3ec
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Just as no monkey is as good-looking as the ugliest of humans, no academic is worthier than the worst of the creators
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artists
arts
criticism
academics
critics
art-history
art
creativity
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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8bd2a2a
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"The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment." ( )"
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writing
detachment
critics
insight
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Raymond Chandler |
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ad7788f
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With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected and tortured after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves again. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me?
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mind
equality
free
books
imagination
education
happiness
intelligence
conform
breach
burning
examiners
fliers
grabbers
imaginative-creators
jumpers
knowers
moutains
racers
runners
snatchers
swimmers
tinkerers
bright
intellectual
critics
target
image
dread
judgment
unfamiliar
judge
constitution
rights
cowardice
bullying
weapons
different
creativity
torture
school
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Ray Bradbury |
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df53747
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Not a moment passes these days without fresh rushes of academic lemmings off the cliffs they proclaim the political responsibilities of the critic, but eventually all this moralizing will subside.
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lemmings
critics
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Harold Bloom |
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79aa403
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I want to say to the literature teacher who remains wilfully, even boastfully ignorant of a major element of contemporary fiction: you are incompetent to teach or judge your subject. Readers and students who do know the field, meanwhile, have every right to challenge your ignorant prejudice. Rise, undergraduates of the English departments! You have nothing to lose but your A on the midterm!
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fantasy
critics
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Ursula K. Le Guin |
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010828b
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Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label -- to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be.
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writing-life
critics
first-person-narrative
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John Irving |
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607a587
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These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers' faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up with the faults and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of other writers; and let the subject treated on be whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms themselves have made.
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writing
jackasses
tails
tubs
pens
critics
flaws
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Jonathan Swift |