Saturday, July 16, 2011

To tell you the truth... (the writer's equivalent of stage fright)

"To tell you the truth, though, I still haven't made up my mind whether I shall publish [Utopia] at all. Tastes differ so widely, and some people are so humourless, so uncharitable, and so absurdly wrong-headed, that one would probably do far better to relax and enjoy life than worry oneself to death trying to instruct or entertain a public which will only despise one's efforts, or at least feel no gratitude for them."
wrote Sir Thomas More in 1515 (translated by Paul Turner & quoted by Fay Weldon in her novel, Letters to Alice.)


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