"A writer who presents men and women as creatures truncated below the waist is exposed as one who goes about without his trousers saying, 'see, I have had my testicles removed.'"

This quote by Norman Lindsay is a humorous method of revealing the idea that an author who does not depict their characters as fully-rounded people is not doing justice to their work. By comparing such an author to somebody who goes around without their trousers, Lindsay is suggesting that they are not presenting a total photo of their characters. He suggests that an author who does not portray their characters with depth and complexity is essentially saying, "see, I have actually had my testicles eliminated", implying that they are not offering a complete and accurate representation of their characters. Lindsay is suggesting that an author should aim to develop characters that are fully-formed and three-dimensional, rather than simply providing them as one-dimensional stereotypes.