“Poker Face,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″

*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

Interviewer:  Do you think criticism helps any?

Capote: Before publication, and if provided by persons whose judgment you trust, yes, of course criticism helps.  But after something is published, all I want to hear is praise.  Anything less is a bore, and I’ll give you fifty dollars if you produced a writer who can honestly say he was ever helped by the prissy carpings and condescensions of reviewers.  I don’t mean to say  that none of the professional critics are worth paying attention to – but few of the good ones review on a regular basis.  Most of all, I believe in hardening yourself against opinion.  I’ve had, and continue to receive, my full share of abuse, some of it extremely personal, but it doesn’t faze me any more.  I can read the most outrageous libel about myself and never skip a pulsebeat.  And in this connection there is one piece of advice I strongly urge:  never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never.  Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don’t put them on paper.       

Truman Capote in Writers at Work:  The Paris Review Interviews First Series, edited, and with an introduction by Malcolm Crowley

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