To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love (the other), to know that writing compensates for nothing, sublimates nothing, that it is precisely there where you are not--this is the beginning of writing.Roland Barthes
About This Quote
The beginning of writing, perhaps, is the realization that one doesn’t write for any other person, not even for oneself. The first thing we learn as writers is that we don't write for the other person. We write so that no one else will read what we've written. We write to be loved by no one. But if there's no one to be loved, where does love come from? Where does writing come from?
Source: A Lovers Discourse: Fragments
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