American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that aspiring for greatness can lead to mediocrity.
Gore Vidal critiques American writers who aim for greatness at the expense of their current capabilities. By focusing on becoming great rather than simply striving to be good, many writers may become trapped in a cycle of disappointment, resulting in them achieving neither. This highlights the paradox of aiming too high without acknowledgment of the skills and efforts needed to improve.
In practice
This quote could be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to focus on the quality of their work rather than unattainable standards.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
Envy is the central fact of American life.
Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with.
Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal.
If you keep eating McDonald's, you gonna get sick. You need a real home-cooked meal. And I knew that that would be healthier. And that's what Wu-Tang was: It was a home-cooked meal of hip-hop. Of the real people.
I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again - as I always am when I write.
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.
There's something arbitrary about taking a picture. So I can stand at the edge of a highway and take one step forward and it can be a natural landscape untouched by man and I can take one step back and include a guardrail and change the meaning of the picture radically... I can take a picture of a person at one moment and make them look contemplative and photograph them two seconds later and make them look frivolous.
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