The Saturday Writing Quote — Trollope on dialogue

IMGP2188“The novel-writer in constructing his dialogue must so steer between absolute accuracy of language — which would give to his conversation an air of pedantry, and the slovenly inaccuracy of ordinary talkers, which if closely followed would offend by an appearance of grimace — as to produce upon the ear of his readers a sense of reality.”

Anthony Trollope, Autobiography (as quoted in The Writer on His Art 187 (Walter Allen ed., 1949)).