Robin Lester

“Yes—oh dear yes—the novel tells a story. That is the fundamental aspect without which it could not exist…. We are all like Scheherazade’s husband in that we want to know what happens next. That is universal and that is why the backbone of a novel has to be a story…. Qua story, it can have only one merit: that of making the audience want to know what happens next. And conversely it can only have one fault: that of making the audience not want to know what happens next. These are the only two criticisms that can be made on the story that is a story. It is both the lowest and simplest of literary organisms. Yet it is the highest factor common to all the very complicated organisms known as novels. [E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel]”
― P.D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction

“was such a fool to stay so long in England,” he told a friend”
― Rick Atkinson, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780