Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation--who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him--but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope--qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic's formula or by a critic's yearning.

Whenever convictions are not arrived at by direct contact with the world and the objects themselves, but indirectly through a critique of the opinions of others, the processes of thinking are impregnated with ressentiment. The establishment of “criteria” for testing the correctness of opinions then becomes the most important task. Genuine and fruitful criticism judges all opinions with reference to the object itself. Ressentiment criticism, on the contrary, accepts no “object” that has not stood the test of criticism

It is not my methodology to engage too much with critics for many reasons:- I honestly believe that my ego is not worthy of my having to defend it. There are far more important things in the ummah than me having to respond to critics.- By and large, criticism is a part of human life and nature and we have ourselves to accomplish more than just responding to what people say about us.- The best way to silence the speech of the critics it through the deafening noise of your own actions.- Criticising is the job that requires zero qualifications.

من الناس من يتخذ من المناصب الحكومية طبقات في العلم يوشك من ارتقاها مرة ألا يصعد إلية صوت ناقد

If you think it’s offensive that I call alleged biblical miracles ridiculous, you should ask yourself whether or not it’s ridiculous to insist that Muhammad flew on a winged horse. Or that the earth was hatched from a cosmic egg? Or that Xenu, the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, brought billions of his people to earth 75 million years ago and killed them using hydrogen bombs? These are all religious beliefs of others, but that doesn't mean calling them ridiculous is an insult - it's an objective fact until proven otherwise.

Whenever a journalist wrote an article about him that was critical in nature... he would invite them to a meal and at first they assumed they were in trouble for being critical of him. But they soon learned after arrival at his house for a meal that he merely wanted to engage with them to get an understanding of they criticism... Madiba didn't attempt to change their minds. He would have an informed opinion after having engaged with them, and even though he occasionally changed an opinion by offering correct information, they never parted feeling hostile.

But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her. If the concept of identification suggested that an individual experiences a work as a mirror in which he might recognize himself, the notion of relatability implies that the work in question serves like a selfie: a flattering confirmation of an individual’s solipsism.

Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.

So in this Hemisphere when the moon goes down, I sit in one of those all-night-into-mornings cafes, watching short short skies below the skyscrapers and low-rises and sense the big turntables turning and the roadies setting up from stadium to stadium from L.A. to New York and all north and south and east and west and in between – and i know there must be a lot of kids who aren't sleeping but listening to their muse – iPad-ing and YouTubing...and the final shore ain't no shore at all but a long ether cable cyperspacing us together – cutting the continent in half.

That’s what artists and athletes do day in and day out. Whether you see them at work or not the process is ongoing. They are working to achieve their heart’s desire to either enlighten or entertain anyone who cares to watch or listen. Some of them achieve glory but others just do it because they love to and they are driven to.When something, anything, interferes with that desire, their sense of self is jeopardized and they have to struggle to hang on to their identity. That’s the real cost involved in producing a painting, writing a novel, or hitting over .300 for the season.

It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good. If you're reviewing a film and you decide "This is a movie I don't like," basically you can take every element of the film and find the obvious flaw, or argue that it seems ridiculous, or like a parody of itself, or that it's not as good as something similar that was done in a previous film. What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive.

All I’m arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there’s no taboo against criticizing bad ideas, and where everyone who shows up, in order to get their ideas entertained, has to meet some obvious burdens of intellectual rigor and self-criticism and honesty—and when people fail to do that, we are free to stop listening to them. What religion has had up until this moment is a different set of rules that apply only to it, which is you have to respect my religious certainty even though I’m telling you I arrived at it irrationally.

Don't be fool enough to think you can know a person's character after a few moments of observation. You can't. You have no idea where his life began or how his saga has unfolded thus far. Only his present state can you witness. To judge him at a glance is like reading one page in an open book, believing it's enough to confidently recite the story from beginning to end. True, one page may tell you much, but not nearly enough to accurately critique a book or evaluate a life. So, either become his friend and learn his entire story, or refrain from commenting on a tale you know nothing about.

This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example of such an overcooperative author. In the case of more stubborn authors, the critic is only too happy to perform the job.

دعوة علماء الدين إلى أن يكونوا رسل الديمقراطية الإسلامية بالسعي لتعديل مابين طبقات الناس من الفروق الشاسعة