René-Lysander

“…so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,--pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?”
― Laurence Sterne, 1713-1768, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur.”
― Donna Tartt

“I begin with writing the first
sentence—and trusting to Almighty
God for the second.”
― Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman