Whitney Balliett quotes:

The brilliant explosion known as Benny Goodman went off in 1935, and it hasn´t gone out yet.

A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.

Critics are biased, and so are readers. (Indeed, a critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.) But intelligent readers soon discover how to allow for the windage of their own and a critic's prejudices.