Appeals Quote by Rebecca West

“No one can write a best-seller by taking thought. The slightest touch of insincerity blurs its appeal. The writer who keeps his tongue in his cheek, who knows that he is writing for fools and that, therefore, he had better write like a fool, makes a respectable living out of serials and novelettes; but he will never make the vast, the blaring, half a million success. That comes of blended sincerity and vitality.”

Rebecca West

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.8 out of 5 (4 ratings)

Appeals Best sellers Blur Cheeks Fiction Fool Half Insincerity Knows Millions Respectable Sellers Serials Sincerity Tongue Truth Vitality Writing

More by Rebecca West

I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of mutual obligations…

Rebecca West

Image

“There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that sometimes one needs help with moving the piano.”

Rebecca West

Image

“At the top of a hill our automobile stuck in a snowdrift. Peasants ran out of a cottage near by, shouting with laughter because…

Rebecca West

Image

We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the…

Rebecca West

Image

Christianity must be regarded not as a final revelation but as a phase of revelation.

Rebecca West

Image

Art and propaganda have this much connection, that if a propaganda makes art impossible, it is clearly damned.

Rebecca West

Image

The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy.

Rebecca West

Image

Like all bad drivers, he [Henry Andrews] thought he was the best driver in the world...

Rebecca West

Image

The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods…

Rebecca West

Image

Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.

Rebecca West

Image

[On Jane Austen:] To believe her limited in range because she was harmonious in method is as sensible as to imagine that when the…

Rebecca West

Image

a good oyster cannot please the palate as acutely as a bad one can revolt it, and a good oyster cannot make him who…

Rebecca West

Image

Explore all 264 Rebecca West quotes

More Appeals quotes

Quotations can be valuable, like raisins in the rice pudding, for adding iron as well as eye appeal.

Peg Bracken

Image

If Robert Heinlein is more to your taste than George Lucas: “If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There…

Kevin Drum

Image

All the cliches of glamorous sophistication have little appeal to me. Do I want to live the British version of 'Dynasty?' No thanks!

Sade Adu

Image

It's an appeal as old as America and its presidency: This is an extraordinary country populated by hard-working, big-dreaming, freedom-loving people graced by God…

Ron Fournier

Image

I liked wrestling a lot better than boxing. I remember thinking at that time that wrestling was a pure demonstration of strength, which I…

Scott Carpenter

Image

As a social and as a personal force, religion has become a dependent variable. It does not originate; it reacts. It does not denounce;…

C. Wright Mills

Image

The ascent of any route begins, in dreams at least, the autumn before. Our minds ring, involuntarily, with the alluring names of mountains, aiguilles,…

Gaston Rebuffat