“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.”

— Christopher Hampton

Sunday Times Magazine (London, October 16, 1977)

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Christopher Hampton 5

British playwright, screenwriter and film director 1946

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“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.”

John Osborne (1929–1994) English playwright

Quoted in Time magazine, October 31, 1977. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,945814,00.html
Also attributed to Christopher Hampton by the Sunday Times Magazine (16 October 1977)

“Most writers are trying to find what they think or feel... not simply working from the given, but toward the given, saying the unsayable and steadily asking, "What do I really feel about this?"”

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“Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about war.”

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Context: For how many thousands of years now have we humans been what we insist on calling "civilized?" And yet, in total contradiction, we also persist in the savage belief that we must occasionally, at least, settle our arguments by killing one another.
While we spend much of our time and a great deal of our treasure in preparing for war, we see no comparable effort to establish a lasting peace. Meanwhile, emphasizing the sloth in this regard, those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers. Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about war.

“I don't ask writers about their work habits. I really don't care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they're actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?"”

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I don't need that question answered.
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“Like every writer, he measured the virtues of other writers by their performance, and asked that they measure him by what he conjectured or planned.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

"The Secret Miracle"; Variant: Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.
Source: Ficciones (1944)