. . . money . . . is really the difference between men and animals, most of the things men feel, animals feel, and vice versa, but animals do not know about money.
Gertrude SteinRead
I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can do it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the personal nature of writing, suggesting that it serves both the writer's self-expression and the exploration of shared experiences with others.
Gertrude Stein's quote reflects the dual purpose of writing as both a personal journey and a method of connecting with the wider world. By asserting that she writes for both herself and strangers, Stein highlights the intimate relationship between the author and their audience, suggesting that authentic expression can resonate with others, even if they are initially unknown to the writer. This underscores the idea that art is not solely for the creator's sake, but also has the potential to forge connections across different lives and experiences.
Themes
WritingSelf-ExpressionArtCommunicationConnection
In practice
Example use cases
A writer might use this quote during a literary workshop to emphasize the personal nature of writing.
More from Gertrude Stein
All quotes βThe creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.
Gertrude SteinRead
If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.
Gertrude SteinRead
The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
Gertrude SteinRead
I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.
Gertrude SteinRead
It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
Gertrude SteinRead
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Novels are political because in them, we try to identify with people who are not like us. And, in that sense, I like the first-person singular because I have to imitate accurately the voice of someone who is not like me. The third-person singular gives me an authority over a character.
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When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
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