Critics are everywhere.
One reason the human race has such a low opinion of itself is that it gets so much of its wisdom from writers. –Wilfrid Sheed
All writing is garbage. People who come out of nowhere to try to put into words any part of what goes on in their minds are pigs. –Antonin Artaud
The noted writer Theodore Sturgeon was once asked why so much of science fiction writing was “crap.” He paused for a moment, nodded, and said, yes, 90 percent of science fiction was crap, but that “90 percent of everything is crap.” This is known as Sturgeon’s Law, and is just as true today as it was in the early 1950s when he first pronounced it.
Same is true for critics of writers and writing.
[Errata: I had originally and erroneously attributed this to Robert Heinlein, another noted writer of such classics as Stranger in a Strange Land. My apologies and thank to Tom Dupree for pointing out my error. It is good to have smarter readers dropping by to read your blog posts. May we all be so fortunate. Thank you to all who stop by, read, like, and comment. It is one of the advantages of this blog format. Thank you all. –Editor]
Booker's Blog 
Theodore Sturgeon. Not Heinlein. It’s “Sturgeon’s Law” that 90% of everything is crap. But yes, it’s a pretty good law.
Thank you for the correction. I will make the correction. I took a writing seminar from him and his wife while I was a student at the University of Tennessee. He was a gracious and generous teacher. I wish he were still around.
I first heard of Sturgeon’s Law as a teenager, and back then the word used was “crud,” which is what I suspect Sturgeon actually said. Those were more innocent times. That seminar must have been wonderful! When I was working with Tom Robbins at Bantam, he told me the very first review of his very first novel [ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION] was by Ted Sturgeon…in F&SF!!!
And the connections shine as a belt of stars in the summer sky. Thank you for that bit of information.
It was a wonderful seminar. Held in the summer. There were about a dozen of us, one of the attendees being Lowell Cunningham of Men in Black fame. I see he wrote the script for the most recent installment. Another attendee wrote a script or two for Star Trek: The Next Generation. And then there is me. Less said, the better. But among the things I did get from the seminar is an autographed poster that was used to promote the seminar. Theodore Sturgeon signed it as well as all of us who attended. June 11 – 15, 1979. Has Sturgeon’s trademark Q with an arrow through it meaning “ask the next question.” When writing a story or novel, he said the thing to remember was always ask the next question. What happens next? Why? What happens after that? I’m still trying to ask the right questions and put in the right words. Anyway, thanks for jogging my memory on this day of the transit of Venus.