WIST Quotations

Orwell, George -- Essay (1939), “Charles Dickens,” sec. 6, Inside the Whale (1940-03-11)

Dave — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 17:04:43 +0000

What people always demand of a popular novelist is that the shall write the same book over and over again, forgetting that a man who would write the same book twice could not even write it once.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1939), “Charles Dickens,” sec. 6, Inside the Whale (1940-03-11)

Shaw, George Bernard -- Letter to Upton Sinclair (12 Dec 1941)

Dave — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 15:21:38 +0000

I have regarded you, not as a novelist, but as an historian; for it is my considered opinion, unshaken at 85, that records of fact are not history. They are only annals, which cannot become historical until the artist-poet-philosopher rescues them from the unintelligible chaos of their actual occurrence and arranges them in works of art.

When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to your novels. They object that the people in your books never existed; that their deeds were never done and their sayings never uttered. I assure them that they were, except that Upton Sinclair individualized and expressed them better than they could have done, and arranged their experiences, which as they actually occurred were as unintelligible as pied type, in significant and intelligible order.

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright and critic
Letter to Upton Sinclair (12 Dec 1941)

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith -- Heretics, ch. 15 “On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set” (1905)

Dave — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 04:03:37 +0000

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) English journalist and writer
Heretics, ch. 15 “On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set” (1905)

Johnson, Samuel -- Essay (1754-03-02), The Adventurer, No. 138

Dave — Fri, 09 May 2014 14:31:22 +0000

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1754-03-02), The Adventurer, No. 138

Mencken, H. L. -- A Little Book in C Major, ch. 7, § 21 (1916)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

An historian is an unsuccessful novelist.

H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 7, § 21 (1916)

Variants:

HISTORIAN. An unsuccessful novelist.
[A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)]

Historian - An unsuccessful novelist.
[Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949)]