I would rather...

(plus, please keep scrolling for a very important poll)

Vita Sackville-West (Photo by Sasha/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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I would rather fail gloriously than dingily succeed.

Vita Sackville-West
Letter to Virginia Woolf
21st August 1928

—Love Letters: Vita and Virginia

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I would rather sit in a cellar or watch spiders than listen to an Englishman lecturing.

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Victoria Ocampo
2nd September 1937 

—The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume VI

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I would rather have had you for 21 years, and all the pain that goes with losing you, than never to have had you at all.

Eleanor Wimbish
Letter to her son, 15 years after his death
13th February 1984

—Vietnam Veterans Memorial Museum (full letter here)

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I would rather have a hard-working cobbler for an ancestor than a lazy king.

Victor Hugo
Letter to Albert Caise
20th March 1867

—The Letters of Victor Hugo

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Ernest Hemingway (Photo by Earl Theisen/Getty Images)

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I would rather fight a guy who had a knife and no talent with same than a guy with a good left hook.

Ernest Hemingway
Letter to Waldo Peirce
1st October 1928

—The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 3

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I would rather be sad without you than sad with you, and I am afraid those are the only choices. Please do nothing foolish and think nothing foolish, but go calmly and well about your life, managing it in your own way, guided by your own feelings and certainties. You are a free man, and I take back my freedom. I hate to lose the dream of us, it was a wonderful dream; but it is somehow lost.

Martha Gellhorn
Letter to David Gurewitsch
25th December 1950

—The Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn

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I would rather tickle the cock of the English public than lick its arse, which is what even this small and comparatively unimportant piece of unjust censorship would have me do.

Dylan Thomas
Letter to John Davenport¹
31st August 1938

—Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas

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Sylvia Plath (Photo by Getty)

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I would rather be a mediocre writer than a bad actress.

Sylvia Plath
Letter to her mother
7th November 1955

—The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1

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I would rather be a guest star at the Spanish inquisition than have to face the cretins and jerks we have to pander to to survive.

Fred Allen
Letter to a friend
1939

—Fred Allen: Letters

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I would rather be your captive than another woman’s king.

Paul Laurence Dunbar
Letter to Alice Ruth Moore
7th March 1897

—poets.org

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Portrait of Italian author Pietro Aretino by Titian (The Frick Collection)

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I would rather have the world know me as wicked than as stupidly arrogant. Wickedness will die with me, but if I set an example of great audacity, it could live on among those who come after us and set up ignorant fellows like me upon a throne of presumption.

Pietro Aretino
Letter to Bembo
9th August 1538

—The Letters of Pietro Aretino

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I would rather undergo the greatest bodily pains than have my heart constantly lacerated by searing regrets.

Charlotte Brontë
Letter to Constantin Heger
8th January 1845

—The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: 1829-1847

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I would rather get one letter each day from my beloved than two one day and none the next—but it is precisely the regularity that gladdens the heart, the selfsame hour each day when the daily letter should arrive, this hour that brings a feeling of calm, trust, ease, and the absence of unpleasant surprises.

Franz Kafka
Letter to Felice Bauer
16th December 1912

—Letters to Felice

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Zora Neale Hurston (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

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I would rather be shot with tacks than to have missed that dinner with you.

Zora Neale Hurston
Letter to Carl van Vechten
2nd November 1942

—A Life in Letters

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I would rather see a friend once than write him a million letters. Oh much rather. I can’t put it too strongly.

Robert Frost
Letter to George R. Elliott
21st January 1922

—The Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 2

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I would rather be a playwright than anything, mainly because playwrights are allowed to smoke backstage. 

Kurt Vonnegut
Letter to José and Maria Pilar Donoso
5th August 1985

—Kurt Vonnegut: Letters

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Stuart Little — first edition, 1945

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I would rather wait a year than publish a bad children’s book, as I have too much respect for children.

E. B. White while writing Stuart Little
Letter to his editor, Eugene Saxton
11th April 1939

—Letters of E. B. White

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I would rather fail than sit idle.

Vincent van Gogh
Letter to his brother, Theo
14th July 1885

—Ever Yours: The Essential Letters

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I would rather drudge than fight, any day. In drudgery, one’s own self is quiet, resting, preparing to come to fruition; but a struggle is a storm, a wild east wind.

D. H. Lawrence
Letter to Blanche Jennings
26th October 1908

—The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence

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LOOK, A POLL

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1. Thomas had just been sent—by lawyers, not Davenport—a list of “objectionable” words to be removed from the English edition of his short stories.