“Nature fits all her children with something to do,
He who would write and can't write, can surely review.”

— James Russell Lowell, A Fable for Critics

A Fable for Critics (1848)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can't write, can surely review." by James Russell Lowell?

James Russell Lowell photo

James Russell Lowell175

American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat 1819–1891

Related quotes

“Too much is written by the men who can't write about the men who do write.”

Jack London Martin Eden

Source: Martin Eden (1909), Ch. XXXII

“If you can't write a decent short story because of the cold, write something else. Write anything.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), A Cold Day
Context: If you can't write a decent short story because of the cold, write something else. Write anything. Write a long letter to somebody.

“Everybody can write; writers can't do anything else.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

“With his sharp power of vision, resolute power of action, I doubt not he could have learned to write Books withal, and speak fluently enough;—he did harder things than writing of Books. This kind of man is precisely he who is fit for doing manfully all things you will set him on doing.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

“Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

“I will write things, he was thinking. I will write something meaningful and wonderful someday. I can do that. And I'll dedicate it to you because you're the first person who ever made me think I could.”

Anne Rice The Wolf Gift

Source: The Wolf Gift

“A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he’s worth something. And if I know for sure that I’m a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

“The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Paris Review interview (1958)

“I want to write — I want to write — I want to write and never never never will. I know it and I am so unhappy and it seems as though nothing else mattered. Whatever I'm doing, it's always there, an ultimate longing there saying, "Write this — write that — write —" and I can't. Lack ability, time, strength, and duration of vision. I wish someone would tell me brutally, "You can never write anything.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Take up home gardening!"
Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)

“Just because science can't in practice explain things like the love that motivates a poet to write a sonnet, that doesn't mean that religion can. It's a simple and logical fallacy to say, ' If science can't do something, therefore religion can.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Related topics