“At any rate I found myself writing because I had to write, although I didn’t know why.”
Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
“At any rate I found myself writing because I had to write, although I didn’t know why.”
Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient
" My Father's Suitcase", Nobel Prize for Literature lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html (December 7, 2006).
Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer
Source: The Wild Orchid: A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan
Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004) Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory
Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers, from This Bridge Called My Back
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
April 1859
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
Context: I have been writing & speaking what were once called novelties, for twenty five or thirty years, & have not now one disciple. Why? Not that what I said was not true; not that it has not found intelligent receivers but because it did not go from any wish in me to bring men to me, but to themselves. I delight in driving them from me. What could I do, if they came to me? — they would interrupt and encumber me. This is my boast that I have no school & no follower. I should account it a measure of the impurity of insight, if it did not create independence.
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
On Antitrust law: Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, 8/5/1986, transcript http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2422/22sep20051120/www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh99-1064/31-110.pdf at p. 36). <br class="br">1980s
Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence
Source: Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), pp. 443-444.
Context: I am not very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support. Such arguments have often been found unsatisfactory in the past. In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, "And the sun stood still... and hasted not to go down about a whole day" (Joshua x. 13) and "He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time" (Psalm cv. 5) were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory.
Patrick Califia-Rice (1954) American writer
Variant: Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.