Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
Interpretation
Writing serves as a necessary outlet for personal expression and survival.
In this quote, Philip Roth expresses the idea that writing is more than just a creative activity; it is a vital means of preserving his sense of self and well-being. He emphasizes that the act of writing is driven by a desperate need rather than merely talent, suggesting that the persistence to write can often correlate with a struggle for personal survival and identity.
In practice
In a seminar on creative writing, this quote can be used to emphasize the therapeutic aspects of writing.
American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.
Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
I've tried a few times to depart from what I know I can do, and I've failed. I've tried to work outside the studio, but it introduces too many variables that I can't control. I'm really quite narrow, you know.
It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood?
I often make films about subjects I don't really know much about. Maybe it's laziness, but I don't go in there having done a tonne of research; the research happens while I'm making the film.
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.
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