QuoteProject
I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.
Chaim Potok
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Writing involves a challenging process of revision to reveal the true essence of the work.

Chaim Potok compares the act of writing to sculpting a piece of marble, suggesting that the initial creation is just the beginning. The true artistry lies in the revision process, where the writer must refine and chip away at their work to uncover the final, polished piece. This metaphor highlights the importance of perseverance and attention to detail in the craft of writing.

Themes

WritingRevisionCreativityArtistryCraft

In practice

Example use cases

During a writing workshop, this quote could inspire participants to embrace the revision process.

More from Chaim Potok

Well, one hopes that if you're really related to the core of your particular culture, you have profound commitments to it, and that you are aware of how much you can strain it before you do violence to its essential nature.
Chaim PotokRead
… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.
Chaim PotokRead
A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.
Chaim PotokRead
A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.
Chaim PotokRead
All of us grow up in particular realities - a home, family, a clan, a small town, a neighborhood. Depending upon how we're brought up, we are either deeply aware of the particular reading of reality into which we are born, or we are peripherally aware of it.
Chaim PotokRead
He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy--every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.
Chaim PotokRead

Similar quotes

You need to keep something for yourself. As a writer, I feel that even more strongly. I feel like I need to be able to freely observe the world. That's the way I like to move through the world; I don't need to be the focus of attention. If I am, it impairs my ability to write and to do what I do.
Tracy ChapmanRead
Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert.
Frank GehryRead
The poet is never inspired, because he is the master of that which appears to others as inspiration. He does not wait for inspiration to fall out of the heavens like roasted ortolans. He knows how to hunt...He is never inspired because he is unceasingly inspired, because the powers of poetry are always at his disposition, subjected to his will, submissive to his own activity.
Raymond QueneauRead
You're creating a different world and the actor's job is to be able to convince the audience to enter into that world, whether it be actually something that you recognize from your own life or not.
Christian BaleRead
But however measurable, there is much more life in music than mathematics or logic ever dreamed of.
Gabriel MarcelRead
I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between.
Francois TruffautRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.