Art & Creativity Quote by Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Cabrera Infante doesn’t so much confess as throw down a gauntlet. The line begins with a shrug of modesty - “I think” - then snaps into a gatekeeping dare: if you don’t write for yourself, you’re “not a writer.” That pivot is the move. He turns what could be a tender admission about solitude into a combative definition of authenticity, policing the boundary between art and mere production.

The intent is self-justification, but the subtext is polemical: writing that starts with audience management is already compromised. “Primarily” matters here; he isn’t denying readers, markets, or politics. He’s insisting that the first reader who must be seduced is the writer’s own sensibility. In a world where writers are constantly asked to be public servants - explain your country, represent your people, clarify your trauma, comment on the news cycle - Cabrera Infante argues for a more private engine: obsession, pleasure, the compulsion to get a sentence to sing.

Context sharpens the edge. As a Cuban novelist shaped by revolution, censorship, and exile, he knew how quickly literature gets drafted into ideological labor. “For myself” becomes a small declaration of sovereignty: the page as a territory that can’t be collectivized. The irony is that this supposedly selfish principle produces the opposite effect. Writing that begins as a private standard often travels farther, because it refuses the polite lies of writing “for everyone.” It’s a defense of craft and freedom disguised as ego.