Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.
Anne FadimanRead
Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument. Am I writing well? Thank my pen. Am I writing badly? Don't blame me blame my pen. By such displacements does the fearful imagination defend itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects how writers often shift blame or credit for their creativity to external objects rather than taking personal responsibility.
In this quote, Anne Fadiman highlights the tendency of writers to attribute their successes or failures in writing to external tools, like a specific pen or piece of paper, instead of recognizing their own skills and efforts. This illustrates a deeper psychological defense mechanism where individuals deflect responsibility for their creative output, thereby alleviating the fear of personal inadequacy by creating a buffer between themselves and their craft.
Themes
WritingCreativityResponsibilityFearPsychology
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, a participant mentioned this quote to illustrate how writers might avoid facing their creative fears.
More from Anne Fadiman
All quotes →...the reader who plucks a book from her shelf only once is as deprived as the listener who, after attending a single performance of a Beethoven symphony, never hears it again.
Anne FadimanRead
One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights [...] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.
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If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.
Anne FadimanRead
My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.
Anne FadimanRead
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