Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.

Lynd’s remark points to conflict as a structural engine of narrative. “Quarrels” stands for the broader range of antagonisms—personal, political, moral, and cosmic—that generate plot, reveal character, and create stakes. If one removed disputes and collisions of will from literature, the major genres he lists would largely collapse into chronicle, description, or lyric reflection: history would lose its wars and factional struggles; drama would lose its confrontations; fiction and epic would lose the tensions that propel action. The line also carries a wry, skeptical view of human nature: our stories, and perhaps our attention, are drawn to contention because it exposes what people value and what societies are made of.