Daily Inspiration Quote by Katherine Anne Porter

Talent isn’t the scarce commodity here; nerve is. Porter’s line treats “a gift” less like a charm you’re born holding and more like a live wire you choose to grab. The phrasing is quietly accusatory: if you can’t act on what you’re “given,” do you really have it? By making courage “one of the marks,” she reframes giftedness as partly moral and behavioral, not just innate. It’s a rebuke to the romantic idea that brilliance automatically announces itself and gets recognized. Porter implies the opposite: gifts stay theoretical without the willingness to risk embarrassment, rejection, and the more intimate danger of being accurately seen.

The subtext carries the newsroom and the writer’s desk in equal measure. As a journalist and a fiercely exacting fiction writer, Porter knew that the hardest part of craft is not language but exposure: committing to a judgment, naming what others prefer left vague, cutting a sentence that flatters you but lies. “Courage of it” suggests ownership, too. Not courage in general, but courage specifically tailored to your particular capacity, your peculiar obsession. It’s a demand for follow-through.

Context matters: Porter’s career stretched across wars, political upheaval, and the professionalization of letters, and she navigated a literary culture that often treated women’s ambition as impropriety. In that light, “courage” isn’t motivational poster talk; it’s a survival skill. The gift, she hints, arrives with a price tag. Paying it is what proves you weren’t just lucky - you were responsible.