Auden (& Others) on the Difference between Authors and Critics

Auden1
There are people who are too intelligent to become authors, but they do not become critics.

— W. H. Auden, "Reading" (in The Dyer's Hand, 1962)

Compare with Kenneth Tynan's: "The critic knows the way but can't drive the car"

and Hemingway's "Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors."