
“One man is as good as another until he has written a book.”
Letters
No Maps for These Territories (2000)
“One man is as good as another until he has written a book.”
Letters
July 21, 1763, p. 126
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“To be upright and to have an imagination: that is enough to be a very good young man.”
Conversations with History interview (1999)
Khushwant Singh in Sikh Philosophy Network
Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317
Letters and essays
Context: When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.
1890s, The Path of the Law (1897)