Critique Quotes

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. ”
― Susan Sontag

“Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums?”
― Connie Willis, The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories

“The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.”
― Jean De La Bruyere

“The "norm" for humanity is love.
Brutality is an aberration.
We are not sinners by nature.
We learn to be bad.
We are taught to stray from our good paths.
We are made to be crazy by other people who are also crazy and who draw for us a map of the world which is ugly, negative, fearful, and crazy.”
― Jack D. Forbes, Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism

“Writers are often the worst judges of what they have written.”
― Stephen King, Everything's Eventual

“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke to three scholars,' [the character says 'at last.'] ...two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]' ...I can see that he's excited. [narrator]' ...Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.(Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.)Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho ... Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation—none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else—suggests that he is not happy!”
― Roman Payne

“Lucie announced she planned to read to James from her work in progress, Secret Princess Lucie Is Rescued from Her Terrible Family. James listened with a carefully arranged look of interest, even though he was subjected to endless tales of Cruel Prince James and his many awful deeds.
“I think that Cruel Prince James has been somewhat boxed in by his name,” James offered at one point. Lucie informed him that she wasn’t looking for critique at this stage in the creative process.
“Secret Princess Lucie only wishes to be kind, but Cruel Prince James is driven to cruelty because he simply cannot stand to see Princess Lucie best him again and again, in every domain,” said Lucie.
“I’m going to go now,” said James.”
― Cassandra Clare, Chain of Gold

“There was and still is a tremendous fear that poor and working-class Americans might one day come to understand where their political interests reside. Personally, I think the elites worry too much about that. We dumb working folk were clubbed into submission long ago, and now require only proper medication for our high levels of cholesterol, enough alcohol to keep the sludge moving through our arteries, and a 24/7 mind-numbing spectacle of titties, tabloid TV, and terrorist dramas. Throw in a couple of new flavours of XXL edible thongs, and you've got a nation of drowsing hippos who will never notice that our country has been looted, or even that we have become homeless ourselves.”
― Joe Bageant, Rainbow Pie

“It's rather disconcerting to sit around a table in a critique of someone else's work, only to realize that the antagonist in the story is none other than yourself, and no one present thinks you're a very likable character.”
― Michelle Richmond

“La réalité du temps a été remplacée par la publicité du temps.”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“Le tourisme, se ramène fondamentalement au loisir d'aller voir ce qui est devenu banal.”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“He was a young man of savage & unexpected originality, a diseased genius & quite frankly, a mad genius. Imbeciles grow insane & in their insanity the imbecility remains stagnant or agitated; in the madness of a man of genius some genius often remains: the form & not the quality of intelligence has been affected; the fruit has been bruised in the fall, but has preserved all its perfume & all the savor of its pulp, hardly too ripe.”
― Remy de Gourmont, The Book of Masks

“Spinoza or Nietzsche are philosophers whose critical and destructive powers are without equal, but this power always springs from affirmation, from joy, from a cult of affirmation and joy, from the exigency of life against those who would mutilate and mortify life. For me, that is philosophy itself.”
― Gilles Deleuze

“By redirecting the focus of our lives from families and communities to institutions and networks, we, in effect, anoint a machine our king.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

“Não sabíamos que a ordem nas ruas, nas estradas, nas pontes e nas esquadras tinha de ser comprada por tão alto preço - o da venda a retalho da alma portuguesa.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“Les forces qu'elle a déchaînées suppriment la nécessité économie qui a été la base immuable des sociétés anciennes. Quand elle la remplace par la nécessité du développement économie infini, elle ne peut que remplacer la satisfaction des premiers besoins humains sommairement reconnus, par une fabrication ininterrompue de pseudo-besoins qui se ramènent au seul pseudo-besoin du maintien de son règne.”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“Les pseudo-événements qui se pressent dans la dramatisation spectaculaire n'ont pas été vécus par ceux qui en sont informés ; et de plus ils se perdent dans l'inflation de leur remplacement précipité, à chaque pulsion de la machinerie spectaulaire. D'autre part, ce qui a été réellement vécu est sans relation avec le temps irréversible officiel de la société, et en opposition directe au rythme pseudo-cyclique du sous-produit consommable de ce temps. Ce vécu individuel de la vie quotidienne séparée reste sans langage, sans concept, sans accès critique à son propre passé qui n'est consigné nulle part. Il ne se communique pas. Il est incompris et oublié au profit de la fausse mémoire spectaculaire du non-mémorable.”
― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

“We may well have numerous failed states in the Muslim world, I’ll give you that. But what we don’t have are failed societies. That’s a phenomenon that we only see in the West. Our societies are functioning, even if our governments are not, even if we don’t have state-imposed order. We still have functioning societies, we still have moral societies. Our people are still following a moral code. Can’t say the same about the West. And it’s interesting to me that the West uses this as an insult to the Muslim world, ‘‘Oh, look you have failed states’’. First of all, in most instances, you collapsed our states. And second of all, we can still function without them. Can you?”
― Shahid Bolsen

“I know not why, but all the noblest arts hold in perfection but for a very little moment. They soon reach a height from which they begin to decline, and when they have begun to decline it is a pity that they cannot be knocked on the head; for an art is like a living organism - better dead than dying. There is no way of making an aged art young again; it must be born anew and grow up from infancy as a new thing, working out its own salvation from effort to effort in all fear and trembling.”
― Samuel Butler, Erewhon, or Over The Range

“Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.”
― Rosa Luxemburg, Leninism Or Marxism?

“The gleam of plastic blinds human essence, coating everyone with a varnish of superficiality.”
― Paulo Ricardo Zargolin

“I have never tried to control anyone in my entire life. I have only tried to help people make good decisions.”
― Caroline Kepnes, For You and Only You

“Hyper-individualism has fractured our communities.”
― Ken Breniman, Subversive Acts of Humanity : A Survival Guide for Choosing Evolution over Self-Destruction

“In 21st-century democracy, the opposition's purpose is no longer to hold power accountable—but to seize it at any cost. Truth, policy, and the people are mere obstacles on the path to control.”
― Lawrence Nault

“That psychologist wanted me to come back and see him and the psychiatrist wanted to help my scrambled thoughts, but these people, they're just priests of the new religion. Every unpalatable thought and inconclusive experience is a catastrophe to be treated. They hear confession and then offer salvation and sacraments in the form of labels and pills.”
― Scott Pearce, The Rider on the Bridge

“Di Tanah Air, mengalami Pemerintahan satu berganti ke Pemerintahan lain, namun dengan sistem yang sama dan mengecewakan memang membikin hati ini gemes atau penasaran. Aku bahkan sering berang terhadap pihak pelaksana aturan-aturan negara. Lebih-lebih kepada pihak penguasa yang menggunakan wewenang mereka untuk menggerogoti kekayaan negara. Keserakahan membuat korupsi menjadi hal yang 'biasa'.”
― Nh. Dini, Dari Rue Saint Simon ke Jalan Lembang

“The greater good’ is the cream cheese icing on a crap cake — spread thick by those wielding the spatula as a weapon to hide the stench beneath. Many will take a bite, only realizing too late what they’re being fed.”
― Lawrence Nault

“The system was never broken. It was built like that. Our task isn’t to fix it—it’s to grow something better beneath it.”
― Lawrence Nault

“Vet your idea from as many angles as possible. Become your own devil’s advocate.”
― Sasha Laghonh

“Art doesn’t need to be more complex or more realistic to be valid.”
― Christian Baloga