Arthur Morrison > Quotes

“But here Billy Chope arrived to demand what the 'ell Sam Cardew was doing with his gal. Now Sam was ever readier for a fight than Billy was; but the sum of Billy's half pints was large: wherefore the fight began. On the skirt of a hilarious ring Lizerunt, after some small outcry, triumphed aloud. Four days before, she had no bloke; and here she stood with two, and those two fighting for her! Here in the public gaze, on the Flats! For almost five minutes she was Helen of Troy.”
― Arthur Morrison

“They firmly believe it to be the sole function of art to minister to their personal comfort — as upholstery does.”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More

“there came a hoot or two, a ‘Yah!’ and other less spellable sounds,”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More

“Ah — h — h — h,’ he said. ‘I wish I was dead: an’ kep’ a cawfy shop.”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More

“But in the end the truth prevails, if it be well set forth; and the schoolmen, groaning in their infinite labour, wearily write another prescription, admit another precedent, and make another pigeon-hole.”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More

“...Dickey Perrott, you Jago whelp, look at them - look hard. Some day if you are clever - cleverer than anyone in the Jago right now - if you're only scoundrel enough, and brazen enough, and lucky enough - one of a thousand - maybe you'll be like them: bursting with high living, drunk when you like, red and pimply. There it is - that's your aim in life - there's your pattern. Learn to read and write, learn all you can, learn cunning, spare nobody and stop at nothing, and perhaps - It's the best the world has for you, for the Jago's got you, and that's the only way out, except gaol and the gallows. So do your devil most, or God help you, Dicky Perrot - though he wont: for the Jago's got you!”
― Arthur Morrison

“The schoolmen peer with dulled eyes from amid the heap of precedents and prescriptions about them, and, distracted by seeing a thing sanctioned neither by precedent nor by prescription, dub the man realist, and rail against him for that his work fits none of their pigeon-holes.”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More

“the piteous demand that the artist should be shut up in a flower-garden, and forbidden to peep through the hedge into the world.”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More

“It is the artist’s privilege to seek his material where he pleases, and it is no man’s privilege to say him nay.”
― Arthur Morrison, The Works of Arthur Morrison: The Complete Martin Hewitt Stories, The Dorrington Deed Box, Tales of Mean Streets and More