No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
Tom WolfeRead
If most writers are honest with themselves, this is the difference they want to make: before, they were not noticed; now they are.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the desire for recognition that many writers share in their journey.
Tom Wolfe expresses a common aspiration among writers: the transition from obscurity to recognition. He suggests that a significant motivation for writing is the hope to be acknowledged and appreciated for one's work, essentially transforming from being unnoticed to gaining visibility and validation.
Themes
RecognitionWritingVisibilityMotivationJourney
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote in a workshop about the struggles and triumphs of aspiring authors.
More from Tom Wolfe
All quotes βAnd - of course! - the Non-people. The whole freaking world was full of people who were bound to tell you they weren't qualified to do this or that but they were determined to go ahead and do just that thing anyway.
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The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
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Driving a stock car does not require much handling ability, at least not as compared to Grand Prix racing, because the tracks are simple banked ovals and there is almost no shifting of gears. So, qualifying becomes a test of raw nerve - of how fast a man is willing to take a curve.
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I have discovered that for me - now, maybe it doesn't work for everybody - for me, it is much more effective to arrive at any situation as a man from Mars than to try to fit in.
Tom WolfeRead
There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous - and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.
Tom WolfeRead
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