20 Authors. One Sentence.

A Masterclass in Voice

Everyone has their unique writing style, especially if they are authentic to their inner self. I picked the iconic line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

Here’s how 20 other famous authors might have written it.

1. Douglas Adams

To be or not to be? That is the question. The answer, as it happens, is 42.
Sci-fi nerd bait with a punchline that never ages.

2. Kurt Vonnegut

To be or not to be? That is the question. So it goes.
Dark, deadpan, and infinitely quotable.

3. Dr. Seuss

To be, or not to be? That is the question, you see! I’d rather be a Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz than nothing at all, that’s me!
Rhyming absurdity with pure childish genius.

4. Ernest Hemingway

To be or not. The question.
Six words. No adverbs. Pure iceberg.

5. George R.R. Martin

To be, or not to be. That is the question. If you think the answer is a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.
Grim, meta, and perfectly on-brand for the Red Wedding.

6. Stephen King

To be or not to be…that’s the question that floats like a red balloon in the gutter…toa clown smiling with all its teeth.
Freak out your friends who fear clowns.

7. Oscar Wilde

To be, or not to be? That is the question. I always choose to be; the alternative is so dreadfully common.
Epigrammatic sass. One-liner perfection for authorial snobs.

8. Mark Twain

To be or not to be? Well, that’s the question, ain’t it? I reckon I’d be if I could stand the company.
Folksy, dry, and dripping with sarcasm.

9. J.R.R. Tolkien

To be, or not to be? That is the question. One does not simply answer it.
Every fantasy writer will nod in weary agreement.

10. F. Scott Fitzgerald

To be, or not to be? That is the question, and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into it.
A lyrical rewrite of one of the most famous closing lines in literature. Devastatingly pretty.

11. Jane Austen

To be, or not to be? That is the question; though, indeed, a lady of good breeding might not utter it aloud.
Regency shade. Romance writers enjoy a well-placed semicolon.

12. Terry Pratchett

To be, or not to be? That is the question.¹
¹ A question which, if asked in Ankh-Morpork, would be answered with “I saw a chap not being once. He owed money.”
A footnote gag for Discworld fans.

13. J.K. Rowling

To be, or not to be? That is the question. It’s a riddle even the Sorting Hat couldn’t place.
Warm, whimsical, and ripe for the millions who still put their Hogwarts house in their bio.

14. Raymond Chandler

To be or not to be. That’s the question. It walked into my office wearing trouble like a cheap perfume, and it didn’t care who knew it.
Hardboiled attitude for Noir writers.

15. Margaret Atwood

To be, or not to be? That is the question. In Gilead, the answer is: you be, or else.
Chilling brevity.

16. Edgar Allan Poe

To be, or not to be? That is the question. Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
Gothic camp, played straight for the dark academia crowd to swoon.

17. Cormac McCarthy

To be or not to be. The question. It came out of the gathering dusk like a knife. He held the question and it cut him.
Sparse, biblical, and so bleak it’s beautiful. Hemingway fans will feel personally attacked.

18. Charles Dickens

To be, or not to be? That is the question, and as the fog rolls in over Chancery Lane, the case of Being v. Non-Being is still pending in the Court of Chancery.
Verbose, satirical, and painfully accurate for anyone who’s ever dealt with legal paperwork or a plot that sprawls.

19. Leo Tolstoy

To be, or not to be? That is the question. All happy beings are alike; every unhappy being is unhappy in its own way.
Instantly recognizable Tolstoy.

20. David Foster Wallace

To be, or not to be? That is the question, which, if you really think about it, is just a particularly euphemistic way of asking whether the whole what-exactly-it-means-to-exist conversation is going to end up being just another circular piece of forehead-to-forehead ontological you-know-what.
A footnote-laden brain-melt. Smartest writer on the list some would say, but gets a bit tangled in the syntax. Still memorably mad.

Did any of your favorite writers make the list? Do you agree with the revised sentence? How would you rewrite Shakespeare’s sentence? Tell us in the comments.

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