Art & Creativity Quote by Richard Price

There is a quiet aggression in Richard Price's line: writing isn't framed as a choice, or even a calling, but as the default state of being. "I can't imagine not writing" dodges the romantic mythology of the author as enlightened observer and replaces it with compulsion: a habit so ingrained it becomes indistinguishable from identity. The verb "imagine" matters. Price isn't claiming divine inspiration; he's pointing to a failure of alternatives. The absence of writing is literally unthinkable, as if the mind only coheres when it's translating life into sentences.

That subtext tracks with Price's particular cultural position. He's a novelist and screenwriter whose work (Clockers, The Wire episodes) is built on eavesdropping as craft: the granular social music of cops, hustlers, union guys, New York streets. For that kind of writer, not writing isn't a neutral pause; it's a loss of capture, a forfeiting of the one tool that turns chaos into pattern. The line also gently rejects the productivity sermon that shadows modern creative work. Price doesn't say "I write to publish" or "to be heard". The justification isn't market-facing. It's internal weather.

There's a sly bit of humility, too. If you "can't imagine" stopping, you aren't claiming mastery; you're admitting dependence. Writing becomes less a pedestal and more a life-support system, a way to stay awake to the world and to yourself.