Life & Wisdom Quote by Leslie Charteris

A professional novelist admitting he dodges his own genre isn’t just a quirky work habit; it’s a confession about authorship as contamination. Charteris frames the fear as “unconscious imitation,” which is a slyly anxious phrase: he’s not worried about theft in the legal sense, but about the stealthy way other writers’ rhythms, solutions, and even moral temperature can seep into your work before you notice. The word “fanatical” is doing real labor here. It’s self-mocking enough to be charming, but it also signals discipline bordering on superstition, as if originality requires ritual cleanliness.

The subtext is an argument about voice. Popular fiction, especially the kind Charteris made his name in, runs on familiar engines: pacing, tropes, archetypes, a recognizable promise to the reader. That ecosystem encourages iteration. Charteris is telling you he wants the benefits of the form without sounding like anyone else riding the same rails. He’s protecting not just plot but tonal fingerprint.

Context matters: a mid-century commercial writer working in an industry of fast consumption, adaptations, and heavily signposted genres. In that world, influence isn’t a rare accident; it’s the air. His avoidance reads as both artistic pride and brand management. If the Saint becomes interchangeable with the era’s other suave adventurers, Charteris doesn’t just lose originality; he loses the franchise.