I know just where I stand ... in the very first row of the second-raters.

Misattribution originally by Louis Wilkinson, in Louis Marlow [Wilkinson], “Somerset Maugham,” Writers of To-day 2, Denys Val Baker, ed. (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1948), 43 | I know just where I stand … in the very front row of the second rate ones [writers]. | Paraphrase or mash-up of various quotes of Maugham, influenced by the 1946 review of Maugham's novel Then and Now by Edmund Wilson, which states | I have never been able to convince myself that he was anything but a second-rate writer. | See detailed analysis in