But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times, have had lessons enough of the futility of criticism.
O why do I ever let anyone read what I write! Every time I have to go through a breakfast with a letter of criticism I swear I will write for my own praise or blame in future. It is a misery.
There is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy.
An artist must only judge of what he understands, his field is just as limited as that of any other specialist... That in his sphere there are no questions, but only answers, can only be maintained by those who have never written and have had no experience of thinking in images.
I wouldn't be worth my salt if I weren't attracting some controversy and criticism. Everyone in the world who has done something in life has attracted criticism.
Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots.