Favorite quotes

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

They condemn what they do not understand.

He cannot be strict in judging, who does not wish others to be strict judges of himself.

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.

Critics are usually kinder to cheaper movies than to those they perceive to be big Hollywood releases. They cut you a lot more slack if you spend less money, which makes no sense.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers any body else to rail at me.

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.