The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader’s mind as differing from, say, the purpose of oratory or philosophy which respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood.
ATTRIBUTION:
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), U.S. author. Letter, June 1, 1934, to Ernest Hemingway. The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ed. Andrew Turnbull (1963).
