Penny/criticism

Famous quotes containing the words penny and/or criticism:

    I had not given a penny for a song
    Did not the poet sing it with such airs
    That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
    Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
    Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige through being mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)