Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.
Interpretation
The quote compares writers to lamp-posts, suggesting that writers, like lamp-posts, do not concern themselves with the opinions of critics.
Christopher Hampton's quote illustrates the notion that a writer's work should be independent of external criticism, just as a lamp-post is unaffected by the presence of dogs. This analogy highlights the idea that artists often focus on their craft without letting outside opinions influence their creative process, suggesting that critics' views are irrelevant to the true essence of writing.
In practice
In a discussion about the pressures of literary criticism, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of staying true to one's artistic vision.
I don't record (any type of genre of music) that I didn't hear in my family's living room by the time I was 10. It just is my rule that I don't break because ... I can't do it authentically ... I really think that you're just hard-wiring (synapses) in your brain up until the age of maybe 12 or 10, and there are certain things you can't learn in an authentic way after that.
The naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holiday games. You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter. When I tell you a cat must have three different names.
Very often, footage that you have shot develops its own dynamic, it's own life, that is totally unexpected, and moves away from you're original intentions. And you have to acknowledge, yes, there is a child growing and developing and moving in a direction that isn't expected-accept it as it is and let it develop its own life.
Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling.
Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly.
My greatest fear is feeling like a professional novelist. Somebody who creates characters, who sits down and has pieces of paper taped to the wall - what's going to happen in this scene, or this act. What I like is for it to be a much more scary, sloppy reflection of who I am.
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