QuoteProject
Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand - a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods - or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.
Willa Cather
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Writing can either be a commercially driven activity or an artistic pursuit focused on creativity and intrinsic value.

Willa Cather's quote emphasizes the dual nature of writing: it can be a pragmatic endeavor aimed at fulfilling market demands, akin to producing common goods like soap or breakfast foods, or it can be a profound artistic expression driven by the quest for innovation and originality, independent of commercial considerations. This highlights the tension between commercial viability and artistic integrity in the literary world.

Themes

WritingArtCreativityMarketStories

In practice

Example use cases

In a writing workshop discussing the balance between commercial writing and creative projects.

More from Willa Cather

What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.
Willa CatherRead
That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
Willa CatherRead
Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches.
Willa CatherRead
The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.
Willa CatherRead
This is reality, whether you like it or not--all those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth.
Willa CatherRead
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.
Willa CatherRead

Similar quotes

I make a model of the site. There are some obvious things: where the entrance should be, where the cars have to go in. You start to get the scale of it. You understand the client's needs, and what the client is hoping for and yearning for.
Frank GehryRead
Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself.
Chuck PalahniukRead
Creativity: Take the obvious, add a cupful of brains, a generous pinch of imagination, a bucketful of courage and daring, stir well and bring to a boil.
Bernard BaruchRead
No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
We Orientals find beauty not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows, the light and darkness which that thing provides.
Junichiro TanizakiRead
It's wonderful to see art in a museum, but it is institutionalised. I don't like the idea of the artwork as something that requires special conditions. I would like it to be universal.
Antony GormleyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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