. . . 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
You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting... It will come if it is there and if you will let it come.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of writing lies in the process of creation rather than the final product.
Gertrude Stein emphasizes the importance of the writing process, suggesting that true creativity happens spontaneously between the act of writing and the physical medium. She urges writers to focus on discovery rather than getting caught up in the outcomes, highlighting that genuine artistry emerges when one allows their thoughts to flow freely without preconceived notions of success.
Themes
WritingCreativityProcessDiscoveryExpression
In practice
Example use cases
A writer could use this quote in a motivational speech about the creative process.
More from Gertrude Stein
All quotes →The 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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