Wit & Attitude Quote by Mark Helprin

Helprin opens by borrowing the voice of the sensible parent, then immediately weaponizes it. “Of course” does a lot of work: it pretends this is settled wisdom, the kind of dinner-table certainty that passes for prudence in a culture obsessed with outcomes. Calling such a hope “insane” isn’t just hyperbole; it’s a provocative acknowledgement that, in market terms, art is a bad bet. Playwrights and poets are the canonical “impractical” destinies because they don’t map neatly onto the modern parental fantasy of safety: stable income, predictable prestige, a resumable career ladder.

The sting is in “Given the odds.” Helprin isn’t arguing that writing is unworthy. He’s conceding the brutal arithmetic that surrounds it: the minuscule number of paid slots, the capriciousness of attention, the way talent doesn’t guarantee a livelihood. That concession makes the next phrase land with irony. “Cavalier about your children’s future” sounds like a moral accusation, as if encouraging artistic ambition were reckless parenting. Yet the subtext suggests the real recklessness may be the opposite: raising kids to believe their worth should be validated only by probability, employability, and institutional approval.

As a novelist, Helprin is also implicating himself. He’s inside the world he’s describing, which gives the remark a bitter credibility: this is not anti-art sermonizing, but an insider’s acknowledgment of how hostile the surrounding economy can be to the life of the mind. The line works because it forces a choice between two kinds of responsibility: protecting a child from risk, or granting them a life large enough to risk something.