Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was the vicar of this parish, but when the parsonage house was destroyed by fire, he moved to nearby Coxwold. While in Sutton he conceived, wrote and published the first two books of Tristram Shandy. It is probable that the book was based on Sutton and the people who lived in and around it, and Sutton on the Forest may be regarded as the true birthplace of the modern novel.
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Famous quotes by laurence sterne:
“Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ... and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.—In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“What these perplexities of my uncle Toby were,—’tis impossible for you to guess;Mif you could,—I should blush ... as an author; inasmuch as I set no small store by myself upon this very account, that my reader has never yet been able to guess at any thing. And ... if I thought you was able to form the least ... conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page,—I would tear it out of my book.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The proper education of poor children [is] the ground-work of almost every other kind of charity.... Without this foundation first laid, how much kindness ... is unavoidably cast away?”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“If the heart beguiles itself in its choice [of a wife], and imagination will give excellencies which are not the portion of flesh and blood:Mwhen the dream is over, and we awake in the morning, it matters little whether ‘tis Rachael or Leah,—be the object what it will, as it must be on the earthly side ... of perfection,—it will fall short of the work of fancy, whose existence is in the clouds.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)