George Gissing Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by George Gissing with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
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“Literature nowadays is a trade.”
Meaning & context
Jasper Milvain bluntly treats literary production as a market profession, setting his commercial adaptability against Reardon’s older ideal of the artist.
Source details
New Grub Street, Part I, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #1709. Jasper Milvain says “Literature nowadays is a trade” while explaining his deliberately commercial strategy for succeeding in the literary marketplace. It remains fictional character dialogue inside Gissing’s critique of publishing economics rather than Gissing’s unqualified personal creed or a current market statistic.
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“Independent! Oh, Alice, what a blessed thing is independence!”
Meaning & context
Virginia Madden reacts to even temporary financial independence as a profound relief from dependence on employers, relatives and the marriage market.
Source details
The Odd Women, represented by Project Gutenberg #4313. Virginia speaks to her sister Alice early in the novel; the exclamation sits inside Gissing’s wider treatment of unmarried women, paid work and constrained choices in Victorian England.
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“Time is money—says the vulgarest saw known to any age or people. Turn it round about, and you get a precious truth—money is time.”
Meaning & context
Gissing’s reflective persona reverses a familiar slogan to emphasize that enough money can purchase usable time, comfort and freedom from some forms of compulsory labor.
Source details
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, Project Gutenberg #1463. The semi-fictional Ryecroft reflects on modest financial security and later warns that both too much and too little money can distort the use of time; the passage is literary reflection, not financial advice.