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The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public - a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization - which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad.

Wilkie Collins

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Wilkie Collins
Age: 65 †
Born: 1824
Born: January 8
Died: 1889
Died: September 23
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet Lawyer
Writer
London
England
William Collins
William Wilkie Collins
Three
Taught
Literary
True
Millions
Unknown
May
Differences
English
Book
Public
Lies
Right
Waiting
Civilization
Good
Reading
Difference
Lying
Fiction
Future
Rest
Pale

More quotes by Wilkie Collins

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I haven't much time to be fond of anything ... but when I have a moment's fondness to bestow, most times ... the roses get it. I began my life among them in my father's nursery garden, and I shall end my life among them, if I can. Yes. One of these days (please God) I shall retire from catching thieves, and try my hand at growing roses.
Wilkie Collins
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We had our breakfasts--whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast.
Wilkie Collins
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This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.
Wilkie Collins
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Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.
Wilkie Collins
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It is one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't understand.
Wilkie Collins
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I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.
Wilkie Collins
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I have heard, as everybody else has, of a spirit's haunting a house but I have had my own personal experience of a house's haunting a spirit.
Wilkie Collins
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The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.
Wilkie Collins
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Tears are scientifically described as a Secretion. I can understand that a secretion may be healthy or unhealthy, but I cannot see the interest of a secretion from a sentimental point of view.
Wilkie Collins
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I have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern society is - the enormous prosperity of Fools.
Wilkie Collins
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I never paid you a compliment, Rachel, in my life. Successful love may sometimes use the language of flattery, I admit. But hopeless love, dearest, always speaks the truth.
Wilkie Collins
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Except in this ignorant and material century, men have always worn precious stuffs and beautiful colours as well as women.
Wilkie Collins
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Men ruin themselves headlong for unworthy women.
Wilkie Collins
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The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.
Wilkie Collins
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But I am a just man, even to my enemy - and I will acknowledge, beforehand, that they are cleverer brains than I thought them
Wilkie Collins
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I am an average good Christian, when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this respect, much the same as I am.
Wilkie Collins
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There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do.They can't sit over their winethey can't play at wistand they can't pay a lady a compliment.
Wilkie Collins
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The books - the generous friends who met me without suspicion - the merciful masters who never used me ill!
Wilkie Collins
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I haven't much time to be fond of anything. But when I have a moment's fondness to bestow, most times the roses get it.
Wilkie Collins
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...it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of a vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all.
Wilkie Collins