Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the author’s own conscience.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904), Russian author, playwright. Letter, January 14, 1887, to M.V. Kiseleva. Complete Works and Letters in Thirty Volumes, Letters, vol. 2, p. 12, “Nauka” (1976).