"I really wanted there to be something in my life that I enjoy just for the beauty of it"
About this Quote
A man famous for turning power into prose admits he wanted something purposeless. That little confession - "just for the beauty of it" - lands with extra force because Robert Caro is the patron saint of grimly purposeful work: years in archives, thousands of pages of political machinery, the long grind of biography as moral investigation. In that context, the line reads like a quiet rebellion against his own vocation.
The intent is almost disarmingly simple: to carve out a private space untouched by ambition, productivity, or the instrumental thinking that dominates modern life. Caro writes about how people bend institutions to their will; here he’s talking about the opposite urge, the desire to be bent - to let beauty act on you without having to convert it into an outcome. It’s also a subtle critique of the achievement culture that flattens experience into utility. The phrasing "there to be something in my life" suggests scarcity, as if beauty has to be smuggled into a schedule already overrun by obligation.
The subtext is that even devotion can become its own kind of tyranny. Caro’s discipline is legendary; this sentence reveals the cost: when your identity is built around seriousness, pleasure starts to look suspicious, like a distraction you have to justify. He refuses the justification. That’s why the line works: it’s not a manifesto, it’s a need, stated plainly - a writer of power admitting he craves the one thing power can’t supply.
The intent is almost disarmingly simple: to carve out a private space untouched by ambition, productivity, or the instrumental thinking that dominates modern life. Caro writes about how people bend institutions to their will; here he’s talking about the opposite urge, the desire to be bent - to let beauty act on you without having to convert it into an outcome. It’s also a subtle critique of the achievement culture that flattens experience into utility. The phrasing "there to be something in my life" suggests scarcity, as if beauty has to be smuggled into a schedule already overrun by obligation.
The subtext is that even devotion can become its own kind of tyranny. Caro’s discipline is legendary; this sentence reveals the cost: when your identity is built around seriousness, pleasure starts to look suspicious, like a distraction you have to justify. He refuses the justification. That’s why the line works: it’s not a manifesto, it’s a need, stated plainly - a writer of power admitting he craves the one thing power can’t supply.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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