“The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.”
Source: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Ch. 41, p. 140
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W. Somerset Maugham158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965Related quotes
E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer
Letter to Shirley Wiley (30 March 1954), in The Letters of E. B. White (1989), p. 391
T.S. Eliot book Tradition and the Individual Talent
Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)
Source: Selected Essays
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer
Der eitle, schwache Mensch sieht in Jedem einen Richter, der stolze, starke hat keinen Richter als sich selbst.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 34.
John le Carré (1931) British novelist and spy
As quoted in "Master of the Secret World: John le Carré on Deception, Storytelling and American Hubris" by Andrew Ross, in Salon (21 October 1996); also in Conversations with John le Carré (2004) edited by Matthew Joseph Bruccoli and Judith Baughman, p. 140
“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
“All writers have concealed more than they revealed.”
Anaïs Nin book The Diary of Anaïs Nin
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Context: One handles truths like dynamite. Literature is one vast hypocrisy, a giant deception, treachery. All writers have concealed more than they revealed.
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
Nobel Prize Speech (1954)
Context: No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.
