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I like criticism, but it must be my way.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010) |
 AI image by R. Kent Rasmussen |
| Criticism is a queer thing. If I print
"She was stark naked" - & then proceeded to describe her person
in detail, what critic would not howl?--who would venture to leave the book
on a parlor table.--but the artist does this & all ages gather around
& look & talk & point. I can't say, "They cut his head
off, or stabbed him, &c" & describe the blood & the agony
in his face. - Notebook #18, Feb. - Sept. 1879 |
 AI image created by Barbara Schmidt |
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...one mustn't criticize other people on grounds where
he can't stand perpendicular himself.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court I have criticized absent people so often, and then discovered,
to my humiliation, that I was talking with their relatives, that I have
grown superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it. Experience has not taught me very much; still it has taught
me that it is not wise to criticise a piece of literature, except to an
enemy of the person who wrote it; then, if you praise it, that enemy admires
you for your honest manliness, & if you dispraise it he admires you
for your sound judgment. A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another
man's cross-eyed aunt. |
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