"I'd always loved to read - and come from a family of readers - but I never thought about writing as a career"
About this Quote
There is a quietly radical modesty in Nora Roberts admitting she "never thought about writing as a career". From one of the most commercially successful novelists alive, the line punctures the myth that talent naturally arrives with a life plan attached. It sketches a familiar pre-success reality: reading is socially acceptable, even virtuous, but authorship is treated like an eccentric ambition unless your environment names it as a viable job.
The phrasing does two things at once. "I'd always loved to read" establishes literacy as pleasure, not ladder-climbing. Then "come from a family of readers" widens the frame: books were culture in the home, but not necessarily a pathway. The hinge is "career" - a word that pulls writing out of the romantic fog and into rent, schedules, and legitimacy. Roberts is signaling that the gap between consuming art and producing it is often less about ability than about permission: who gets to imagine themselves on the other side of the page.
Context matters because Roberts is a genre powerhouse, a figure often treated as an outlier or a factory rather than a craftsperson. This quote subtly reclaims the ordinariness of her origin story. It also reads like an encouragement coded as realism: you can be steeped in stories and still not see authorship as "for you" until life forces a pivot, a deadline, or a dare. The subtext is less inspirational poster than economic sociology: careers are not just chosen; they're made thinkable.
The phrasing does two things at once. "I'd always loved to read" establishes literacy as pleasure, not ladder-climbing. Then "come from a family of readers" widens the frame: books were culture in the home, but not necessarily a pathway. The hinge is "career" - a word that pulls writing out of the romantic fog and into rent, schedules, and legitimacy. Roberts is signaling that the gap between consuming art and producing it is often less about ability than about permission: who gets to imagine themselves on the other side of the page.
Context matters because Roberts is a genre powerhouse, a figure often treated as an outlier or a factory rather than a craftsperson. This quote subtly reclaims the ordinariness of her origin story. It also reads like an encouragement coded as realism: you can be steeped in stories and still not see authorship as "for you" until life forces a pivot, a deadline, or a dare. The subtext is less inspirational poster than economic sociology: careers are not just chosen; they're made thinkable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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