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From my earliest years I had always wanted to be a writer. It was not that I had any particular message for humanity. I am still plugging away and not the ghost of one so far, so it begins to look as though, unless I suddenly hit mid-season form in my eighties, humanity will remain a message short.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects the author's ongoing journey and struggle to convey meaningful ideas through writing.

P. G. Wodehouse shares a candid reflection on his aspirations as a writer, admitting that despite his continuous efforts, he feels he has yet to produce a significant message for humanity. This humorous acknowledgment highlights the often uncertain nature of creative endeavors and the personal quest for meaning that many artists face throughout their careers.

Themes

WritingAspirationStruggleCreativityHumanity

In practice

Example use cases

During a writing workshop, to inspire participants to embrace their journey, I shared P. G. Wodehouse's quote.

More from P. G. Wodehouse

I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a straw hat.
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While not exactly disgruntled, he was far from feeling gruntled. He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
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She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season
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It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time.
P. G. WodehouseRead
Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.
P. G. WodehouseRead
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.
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