About this Quote

This quote may be taken as the credo for Laughing Fire Press. Founded in the traditions of social realism and naturalism, Laughing Fire Press owes a debt to such writers as Norris, Steinbeck, Chekov, Zola, Richard Wright, Upton Sinclair, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, and Dreiser. These authors told their truths about society, raising our awareness and concern about the social and economic forces that shape contemporary life.

The novelist “of all men cannot think only of himself or for himself. And when the last page is written and the ink crusts on the pen-point . . . he will be able to say: ‘I never truckled, I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. By God, I told them the truth. They liked it or they didn’t like it. What had that to do with me? I told them the truth; I knew it for the truth then, and I know it for the truth now.’”

—Frank Norris, World’s Work, October 1901