QuoteProject
I enjoy the challenge of trying to say things beautifully. The message is secondary in that sense. Obviously, I have something that I want to say that's very, very important to me - but the process of actually crafting it is essential.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Crafting beautiful language is as important as the message itself.

In this quote, Ta-Nehisi Coates emphasizes the significance of the artistic process in communication. He suggests that while conveying an important message is crucial, the challenge and pleasure of expressing that message in a beautifully crafted way is equally essential, highlighting the artistry involved in writing and communication.

Themes

WritingArtistryCommunicationBeautyExpression

In practice

Example use cases

In a creative writing workshop, one might use this quote to encourage fellow writers to focus on the beauty of their language.

More from Ta-Nehisi Coates

There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the people in the 19th century. America commits itself to that in theory.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
If I could have anything - you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate - I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
You can't make a direct comparison between middle-class African Americans and middle-class white Americans, affluent African Americans and affluent white Americans. The amount of wealth tends to be less.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead

Similar quotes

I am working, but when one has ceased to do seascape, it is the devil afterward - very difficult; it changes at every instant, and here the weather varies several times in the same day.
Claude MonetRead
Disneyland is a work of love. We didn't go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.
Walt DisneyRead
A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.
Vladimir NabokovRead
This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
I think writer is a word without gender, and a good writer observes, absorbs, hopefully empathizes then translates that into character and story. You don’t have to do or be or have experienced, traveled to, but you have to imagine all of that, very well–and believe it completely during the bubble of the work.
Nora RobertsRead
The water crumbles on it's way down as my hands and feet push me forward. The world is lightening, taking shape, and turning to color. It feels like it's being painted around me.
Markus ZusakRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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