“Why do we write?
"To make suffering endurable
To make evil intelligible
To make justice desirable
and… to make love possible”
Source: Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing
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Roger Rosenblatt 2
American writer 1940Related quotes
“If you suffer and make your loved ones suffer, there is nothing that can justify your desire.”
Source: The Art of Power
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (1944)
Source: The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses
“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.”
Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C. (April 1999)
“We all make mistakes, but intelligence enables us to do it on purpose.”
The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
Context: Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.
We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934