Epigraph:
If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs. - Peter B. Medawar
Research is usually a policeman stopping a novel from progressing. - Brian Moore Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and that they dwell therein. - Zora Neale Hurston
As part of my research for An Anthology of Authors' Atrocity Stories About Publishers, I conducted a study (employing my usual controls) that showed the average shelf life of a trade book to be somewhere between milk and yoghurt. - Calvin Trillin
Without an indigenous literature people can remain alien in their own soil. An unsung country does not fully exist or enjoy adequate international exchange of the inner life. Further, a country must be portrayed by those who hate it or love it as their dwelling place, familiarly, or remain dumb among its contemporaries. - Miles Franklin