Dinosaurs in the Morning, Introduction http://books.google.com/books?id=pLROAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+critic+is+a+bundle+of+biases+held+loosely+together+by+a+sense+of+taste%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage (1962)
“Learn to bear criticism. Do not be childishly biased by your own opinions.”
Lerne Widerspruch ertragen. Sei nicht kindisch eingenommen von deinen Meinungen.
Über den Umgang mit Menschen (1788)
"Interview de David Brin" at ActuSF.com (March 2008) http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-5739.html
“Criticize me for my bad taste, in hindsight, I agree.”
"Chinese Whiskers," FAQ #18: "Did Cat Stevens Say, ‘Kill Rushdie!’?," Mountain of Light http://www.mountainoflight.co.uk/talks_cw.html (undated)
Context: In 1989, during the heat and height of the Satanic Verses controversy, I was silly enough to accept appearing on a program called Hypotheticals which posed imaginary scenarios by a well-versed (what if…?) barrister, Geoffrey Robertson QC. I foolishly made light of certain provocative questions. When asked what I’d do if Salman Rushdie entered a restaurant in which I was eating, I said, “I would probably call up Ayatollah Khomeini”; and, rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author, I jokingly said I would have preferred that it'd be the “real thing”.
Criticize me for my bad taste, in hindsight, I agree. But these comments were part of a well-known British national trait; a touch of dry humor on my part. Just watch British comedy programs like "Have I Got News For You" or “Extras”, they are full of occasionally grotesque and sardonic jokes if you want them! … Certainly I regret giving those sorts of responses now. However, it must be noted that the final edit of the program was made to look extremely serious; hardly any laughs were left in and much common sense was savagely cut out. Most of the Muslim participants in the program wrote in and complained about the narrow and selective use of their comments, surreptitiously selected out of the 3-hour long recording of the debate. But the edit was not in our hands. Balanced arguments were cut out and the most sensational quotes, preserved.
Le génie enfante, le goût conserve. Le goût est le bon sens du génie; sans le goût, le génie n'est qu'une sublime folie.
François-René de Chateaubriand, in "Essai sur la littérature anglaise (1836): Modèles classiques http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-101390&M=tdm.
Misattributed
Source: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana: Translated from the Sanskrit. In seven parts, with preface, introduction, and concluding remarks http://books.google.com/books?id=-ElAAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA18, Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares, 1883, P. 17
Letter 8
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)
Pt. 1, ch. 1, sct. 2
A Burnt-Out Case (1960)
“Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.”
6 February 1752
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
