Quotes About Critical Writing

#1. Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

Raymond Chandler

#2. One of the things I've been talking about with my critical writing and my own work is that these movies are seen differently in a theatrical space. It's very important to me. I edit films to be seen theatrically, like fiction material I've worked on like Listen Up Phillip or other documentaries.

Robert Greene

#3. As for critical writing about modernism, its moments of lucidity are but fulgurations illuminating the dark and incomprehensible landscape of its subject's unabashed difficulty.

Will Self

#4. Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

Raymond Chandler

#5. Energy seems to be the more critical of those two variables, because if I'm really feeling the push/pull to write, then I'll make the time.

Kevin Keck

#6. Fairness forces you - even when you're writing a piece highly critical of, say, genetically modified food, as I have done - to make sure you represent the other side as extensively and as accurately as you possibly can.

Michael Pollan

#7. There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

Jessamyn West

#8. Many times, what people call 'writer's block' is the confusion that happens when a writer has a great idea, but their writing skill is not up to the task of putting that idea down on paper. I think that learning the craft of writing is critical.

Pearl Cleage

#9. If you write something in the evening or at night, look back over it the next morning. I tend to be less self-critical at night; sometimes, I've looked back at things I wrote the night before, and realized they were no good at all.

Mark-Anthony Turnage

#10. First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago.

Carl Wilson

#11. Increasingly, those who used to teach and write critical or theoretical texts are writing fiction, poetry and so on; and kinds of texts are being produced that call for budding readers rather different from those who studied literature in the past.

Nicholas Royle

#12. I'm a voracious reader, and I like to explore all sorts of writing without prejudice and without paying any attention to labels, conventions or silly critical fads.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

#13. Writers quite often starve. And I'm mainly just writing critical prose and poetry, that's a formula for starvation.

Clive James

#14. There is a lot of catarsis that passes itself off as art or comedy and I'm kind of critical of that. I think that just because you bare your soul or underwear or private moments it doesn't , or necessarily make for entertainment, or good writing, or funny writing.

Mindy Kaling

#15. The premise of Nossiter in 'Mondovino' would have been a lot more accurate when I started writing about wine in 1978 than when the movie was made in 2003. When I started, I was enormously critical of California wines, and I thought the entire wine industry was on a real slippery slope.

Robert M. Parker Jr.

#16. I have no interest whatsoever in pursuing acting or becoming a mogul. I love writing and directing; I see those two jobs as the most critical in the making of a film.

James Gray

#17. In high school, my English teacher Celeste McMenamin introduced me to the great novels and Shakespeare and taught me how to write. Essays, poetry, critical analysis. Writing is a skill that was painful then but a love of mine now.

Aaron Lazar

#18. When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you're done, you have to step back and look at the forest.

Stephen King

#19. You must make a clear distinction between your creative mode and your critical mode. The two are like water and oil, they do not mix.

Gudjon Bergmann

#20. I hope for what I always hope for as a writer: a critical but kind reader. I think that is what we all hope for.

Christos Tsiolkas

#21. An author who rewrites his own work must essentially be two people. One is the free flowing uncritical writer who creates the bulk of the material - the other is the extremely critical editor whose aim it is to make the book as good as it can become.

Gudjon Bergmann

#22. Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see myself that it's no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes this, what would be the judgment of a critical public?

Jean Webster

#23. Anyone who says that writing for children or teens is easier than writing for adults has never tried it, because they are so much more critical than adults. You cannot get anything past them.

Margaret Stohl

#24. As you know, I have over the years written critically about the U.N. I have consistently stressed in my writings that American leadership is critical to the success of the U.N., an effective U.N., one that is true to the original intent of its charter's framers.

John Bolton

#25. Obviously all writers, all artists, have their own internal critics; as they write they are being self-critical.

Edna Longley

#26. Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

Cory Doctorow

#27. When students learn to wrestle with questions about purpose, audience, and genre, they develop a conceptual view of writing that has lifelong usefulness in any communicative context.

John C. Bean

#28. The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination.

J. Michael Straczynski

#29. As I wrote more I became more critical of myself and I think that you have to be your harshest judge. I don't ever believe that what I write is my best work. I always think that I can hone it. I can always think that I can make it a little bit better.

Homer Hickam

#30. Rule #1: Writing is for the creative brain. Editing is for the critical brain. Separate them appropriately.

James D. Beers

#31. My focus has always been on the work - that work being critical thinking and writing. I am always doing that. That's where I am, wherever I am. Critical thinking and writing as my heartbeat.

Bell Hooks

#32. There's a hormone secreted into the bloodstream of most writers that makes them hate their own work while they are doing it, or immediately after. This, coupled with the chorus of critical reaction from those privileged to take a first look, is almost enough to discourage further work entirely.

Francis Ford Coppola

#33. For a really long time [before writing the novel], I was watching a lot of serial killer movies and I started to wonder if this was a trend and if other people were doing the same thing. That's what happens when you suddenly have a critical perspective on your own behavior.

Lucy Corin

#34. What I am best at is reading a book and then writing a critical essay.

Rivers Cuomo

#35. I don't know if the books are making the world a much better place. I don't write with that objective. What I know is that I see my readers creating a critical mass so we can at least understand this world in a different way.

Paulo Coelho