Wealth & Money Quote by Bessie Head

Head turns the romantic myth of the “starving artist” inside out by refusing to let it flatter her. The line is funny in a dry, winced way: cash arrives during “a big off-period,” as if money has terrible timing, while “genius” shows up only when she’s hungry. That mismatch is the real subject. She’s describing a life where the market and the mind run on different clocks, and where survival doesn’t politely wait for inspiration.

The subtext is harsher than the wry rhythm suggests. “Need for cash” isn’t bohemian garnish; it’s pressure, shame, the constant accounting of rent and food. Head admits she “often get[s] the money when I don’t think I deserve it,” exposing how payment can feel less like validation than like an arbitrary weather system. Work that matters may be unpaid or delayed, while money can show up for lesser output, leaving the writer trapped between guilt and relief. “Lolling around” and “abysmal thoughts” puncture any tidy narrative that talent naturally rises to meet opportunity. Sometimes you’re idle not from laziness but from exhaustion, depression, or the psychic drag of precarity.

Context deepens the sting. Head wrote from the margins: a Black woman shaped by apartheid-era Southern Africa and later life in Botswana, often under financial strain and social isolation. In that setting, the idea of a stable “creative career” is almost a cruel joke. The quote’s intent isn’t self-pity; it’s a clear-eyed report on how systems distribute reward out of sync with merit, and how that randomness seeps into an artist’s self-trust.