That when the very first Nobel for literature was awarded to Sully Prudhomme rather than Tolstoy, against public expectations, members of the committee wrote to the old man apologising for this. He replied that he was glad, because doubtless the prize money would have encouraged him to do something stupid.
And that in 1968 the Polish secret police were pressing through a contact in the committee for the prize to go to Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert. They seem to have been worried it would be won by another Polish writer, playwright Witold Gombrowicz, who was politically out of favour. In the end it was awarded to Yasunari Kawabate from Japan.