The world isn’t made of pen, ink, and paper, and if you’re to get on in the world, young man, you must know what the world’s made of.
 George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860). copy citation

add
Author George Eliot
Source The Mill on the Floss
Topic ink world
Date 1860
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6688/6688-h/6688-h.htm

Context

“But if you’re a copying-clerk, you’ll have to stand behind a desk, and stare at your ink and paper all day; there isn’t much out-look there, and you won’t be much wiser at the end of the year than at the beginning. The world isn’t made of pen, ink, and paper, and if you’re to get on in the world, young man, you must know what the world’s made of. Now the best chance for you ’ud be to have a place on a wharf, or in a warehouse, where you’d learn the smell of things, but you wouldn’t like that, I’ll be bound; you’d have to stand cold and wet, and be shouldered about by rough fellows.” source