“At any rate I found myself writing because I had to write, although I didn’t know why.”
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Imre Kertész61
Hungarian writer 1929–2016Related quotes
“Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.”
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
Fiction, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", Orbit 10 (1972)
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
Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted (1994)
Context: It’s important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there’s a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there’s a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there’s a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance. The motive is paramount. Without a strong motive, you’re sunk. My motives were weak: an American-history paper I didn’t want to write and the question I’d asked months earlier, Why not kill myself? Dead, I wouldn’t have to write the paper. Nor would I have to keep debating the question.
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).
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.
“I don't write in Portuguese. I write myself.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 353
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Eu não escrevo em português. Escrevo eu mesmo.