George Gissing - New Grub Street (1891)

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Mr Quarmby laughed in a peculiar way, which was the result of long years of mirth-subdual in the Reading-room.

George Gissing
Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.

George Gissing
People have got that ancient prejudice so firmly rooted in their heads — that one mustn't write save at I the dictation of the Holy Spirit. I tell you, writing is a business.

George Gissing
'A man who comes to be hanged,' pursued Jasper, impartially, 'has the satisfaction of knowing that he has brought society to its last resource. He is a man of such fatal importance that nothing will serve against him but the supreme effort of law. In a way, you know, that is success.'

George Gissing
I am learning my business. Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets; when one kind of goods begins to go off slackly, he is ready with something new and appetising. He knows perfectly all the possible sources of income. Whatever he has to sell he'll get payment for it from all sorts of various quarters; none of your unpractical selling for a lump sum to a middleman who will make six distinct profits.

George Gissing
I maintain that we people of brains are justified in supplying the mob with the food it likes. We are not geniuses, and if we sit down in a spirit of long-eared gravity we shall produce only commonplace stuff. Let us use our wits to earn money, and make the best we can of our lives. If only I had the skill, I would produce novels out-trashing the trashiest that ever sold fifty thousand copies. But it needs skill, mind you; and to deny it is a gross error of the literary pedants. To please the vulgar you must, one way or another, incarnate the genius of vulgarity.

George Gissing
Of course, if your work is strong, and you can afford to wait; the probability is that half a dozen people will at last begin to shout that you have been monstrously neglected, as you have.

George Gissing
He pointed to a heap of five or six hundred letters, and laughed consumedly. "Impossible to read them all, you know. It seemed to me that the fairest thing would to be to shake them together, stick my hand in, and take our one by chance. If it didn't seem very promising, I would try a second time."

George Gissing
Bits of jokes, bits of statistics, bits of foolery.

George Gissing