James Hilton

I confess I have a weakness for a novel that tells a story. It can do lots of other things besides, and its scenes can be laid in Tennessee or Timbuktu or Tibet. But a story, please, a story. I believe that people like stories, and I believe that romantic and adventurous stories will hold their popularity because, with all its drawbacks, the romantic and adventurous view of life is the most sensible.

James Hilton, author of several famous novels, including Lost Horizon and Goodbye Mr Chips.

Quoted in the Afterword to Lost Horizon, Readers Digest edition, 1990