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About this quote

What does it mean?
If you cannot write yourself, you should review the work of others.
In plain terms
People who cannot write can still review writing.
What can you take from it?
Critique is a role for those who cannot create.

Where it applies

  • publishing
  • arts
  • education

Putting it to work

  • become a reviewer
  • find your role

Questions to consider

  • Who should review?
  • What if you can't do it?

Another view

Writing and reviewing both take skill and talent.

More from James Russell Lowell

  1. For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis odd He leaves never a doorway to get in a god.

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  2. Ez fer war, I call it murder- There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that.

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  3. There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge.

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