Nephi Anderson

“ I enter a plea for fiction, the good, pure, elevating kind. You, good soul, who claim that everything that is not a fact, or that does not literally happen is bad, have no scruples in hanging on your walls a beautiful oil painting, whose majestic hills, green foliage, and blue waters have no existence save in the imagination of the painter. The incidents of a story are just as existent as the scenes of your picture. ”

“ Yes, the world reads fiction. If one has a message to deliver, he puts it in a novel, into a living, breathing thing. The Latter-day Saints have a great message to the world. What a field is here for the pen of the novelist. As Tennyson says:
“Truth in closest words shall fail, When truth embodied in a tale, Shall enter in at lowly doors” ”

“ The statement made by critics that fiction reigns supreme in the literature of the day is no doubt true. In the list of published books, the novel takes the lead. Fiction comes in a continuous stream from the press of the country, and it reaches all classes of society. ”