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It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Quoted in Reader's Digest, Sept. 1949. According to Nigel Rees, Cassell's Humorous Quotations, the following appeared in Punch in 1924: " 'It took me nearly ten years to learn that I couldn't write.' 'I suppose you gave it up then?' 'Oh, no! By that time I had a reputation established.' " The issue referred to by Rees is 6 Feb., and the cartoonist is R. Curry.
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.