
“I want to write a novel about Silence," he said; “the things people don’t say.”
Source: The Voyage Out
"Ten Books," The Southern Review (Autumn 1935) [p. 9]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
“I want to write a novel about Silence," he said; “the things people don’t say.”
Source: The Voyage Out
National Book Award Acceptance Speech (1957)
Context: When a poet is being a poet — that is, when he is writing or thinking about writing — he cannot be concerned with anything but the making of a poem. If the poem is to turn out well, the poet cannot have thought of whether it will be saleable, or of what its effect on the world should be; he cannot think of whether it will bring him honor, or advance a cause, or comfort someone in sorrow. All such considerations, whether silly or generous, would be merely intrusive; for, psychologically speaking, the end of writing is the poem itself.
Radio interview (1939) quoted in Introduction by Robert DeMott to a 1992 edition of The Grapes of Wrath
Context: Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires. Present-day kings aren't very inspiring, the gods are on a vacation and about the only heroes left are the scientists and the poor … And since our race admires gallantry, the writer will deal with it where he finds it. He finds it in the struggling poor now.
Stonor v. Fowle (1887), L. R. 13 Ap. Ca. 27.
"Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation" https://www.c-span.org/video/?186036-1/lincolns-emancipation-proclamation (23 March 2005), C-SPAN
2000s
Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 11
To Reach Eternity (1989)
“I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual”