“Critics are to authors what dogs are to lamp-posts.”
“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs."[Time Magazine, October 31, 1977]”
“The truth is not that we need the critics in order to enjoy the authors, but that we need the authors in order to enjoy the critics.”
“I'm equally sure, however, that I won't walk into a lamp-post while reading {literature}, like I did with {a legal thriller} all those years ago; you don't walk into lamp-posts when you're reading literary novels, do you?”
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.”
“He would make a good lamp post if he'd weather better and didn't have to eat.”