I knew that you couldn't make a living simply writing about the outdoors, so I made an effort from the beginning of my freelance career to write about other subjects.
Jon KrakauerRead
Almost every magazine piece I've ever written, I felt like I haven't done it justice, like it was just a gloss.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a writer's feeling of inadequacy in capturing the true essence of their subject.
Jon Krakauer reflects on the challenges of writing, conveying a sense of frustration that he has never fully captured the depth and complexity of the stories he tells. The acknowledgment of writing as an art form that often feels incomplete serves as a reminder of the subjective nature of creativity and the endless pursuit of excellence in conveying thoughts and experiences.
Themes
WritingArtExpressionCreativityInadequacy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the struggles of creativity, one might quote Jon Krakauer to illustrate the difficulty of capturing complex ideas.
More from Jon Krakauer
All quotes βGetting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable.
Jon KrakauerRead
He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.
Jon KrakauerRead
Having stumbled upon a tolerable career, for the first time in my life I was actually living above the poverty line. My hunger to climb had been blunted, in short, by a bunch of small satisfactions that added up to something like happiness.
Jon KrakauerRead
The way Everest is guided is very different from the way other mountains are guided, and it flies in the face of values I hold dear: self-reliance, taking responsibility for what you do, making your own decisions, trusting your judgment - the kind of judgment that comes only through paying your dues, through experience.
Jon KrakauerRead
Mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.
Jon KrakauerRead
Similar quotes
Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day.
Virginia WoolfRead
The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.
Norman RockwellRead
Imagine that we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. In an instant the room we are sitting in is completely altered; everything in it has taken on another look; the light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. That is the effect I want to get in my film.
Carl Theodor DreyerRead
That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they've never been before. The details, that's what the world is made of.
Wes AndersonRead
Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which otherwise would remain unknown to us like the landscapes of the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing a single world, our own, we see it multiply until we have before us as many worlds as there are original artists.
Marcel ProustRead
Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Pablo PicassoRead