For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.
Robert GravesRead
Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that shortcomings in writing often stem from not thinking deeply or putting in the effort rather than a lack of skill or intelligence.
Robert Graves highlights that the flaws found in English prose are less about a writer's knowledge, intelligence, or artistic ability, and more about their failure to engage thoughtfully, exercise patience, or demonstrate goodwill in their writing process. This underscores the importance of a writer's mindset and their emotional investment in their work, signaling that quality writing requires more than just technical skill.
Themes
WritingThoughtPatienceGoodwillProseEducation
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop discussing the importance of a mindful writing process.
More from Robert Graves
All quotes →To recommend a monarchy on account of the prosperity it gives the provinces seems to me like recommending that a man should have liberty to treat his children as slaves, if at the same time he treats his slaves with reasonable consideration.
Robert GravesRead
A banker warned the British poet Robert Graves that one could not grow rich writing poetry. He replied that if there was no money in poetry, there was certainly no poetry in money, and so it was all even.
Robert GravesRead
Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of "Kill! kill! kill!" and "Blood! blood! blood!
Robert GravesRead
No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.
Robert GravesRead
Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.
Robert GravesRead
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