Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
Interpretation
Writing serves as a necessary outlet for personal expression and survival.
In this quote, Philip Roth expresses the idea that writing is more than just a creative activity; it is a vital means of preserving his sense of self and well-being. He emphasizes that the act of writing is driven by a desperate need rather than merely talent, suggesting that the persistence to write can often correlate with a struggle for personal survival and identity.
In practice
In a seminar on creative writing, this quote can be used to emphasize the therapeutic aspects of writing.
American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds towards heaven :- That is by letters written with their quills.
A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
I have a deep-seated distrust and even contempt for people who are driven by ambition to conquer the world … those who cannot control themselves and produce vast amounts of crap that no one cares about. I find it unattractive. I like the Zen artists: they’d do some work, and then they’d stop for a while.
It's a bit naff, but there is something exciting about pulling a bit of pottery out of the ground that's 2,000 years old.
The big cop-out would be to accept popularity rather than opting to try to create potent work. It's so easy to do the popular thing, the expected thing, and that's where you start to cheat yourself - and your fans, in the end - because there's an inherent dishonesty in pandering and dishing up what everyone's expecting.
Nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning.
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