“I am by trade a novelist. It is, I think, a harmless trade,
though it is not everywhere considered a respectable one.
Novelists put dirty language into the mouths of their characters,
and they show these characters fornicating or going to the toilet.
Moreover, it is not a useful trade, as is that of the carpenter or the
pastry cook. The novelist passes the time for you between one useful
action and another; he helps to fill the gaps that appear in the serious
fabric of living. He is a mere entertainer, a sort of clown. He mimes,
he makes grotesque gestures, he is pathetic or comic and sometimes
both, he sends words spinning through the air like colored balls.”
– Anthony Burgess,
The New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012. Page 69
though it is not everywhere considered a respectable one.
Novelists put dirty language into the mouths of their characters,
and they show these characters fornicating or going to the toilet.
Moreover, it is not a useful trade, as is that of the carpenter or the
pastry cook. The novelist passes the time for you between one useful
action and another; he helps to fill the gaps that appear in the serious
fabric of living. He is a mere entertainer, a sort of clown. He mimes,
he makes grotesque gestures, he is pathetic or comic and sometimes
both, he sends words spinning through the air like colored balls.”
– Anthony Burgess,
The New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012. Page 69
“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that
dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
– a paraphrase of a paragraph from chapter 17 of
G.K. Chesterton’s Tremendous Trifles
dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
– a paraphrase of a paragraph from chapter 17 of
G.K. Chesterton’s Tremendous Trifles