"One tends to overlook the fact that all during the 30's and actually during the late 40's I was a highly successful writer and a great many properties accumulated during that period of time"
About this Quote
Self-mythmaking is the tell here, not the résumé. Hubbard isn’t reminiscing so much as litigating his own legend, stacking dates and achievements like exhibits in a case meant to pre-empt skepticism. The phrasing does a lot of work: "one tends to overlook" casts doubt on the listener before they even object, implying that if you’re unconvinced, it’s because you’ve been careless. It’s a soft scold disguised as modest clarification.
Then comes the slippery timeline. "All during the 30's and actually during the late 40's" sounds precise, but it’s strategically foggy: decades as a smear of productivity, success as a continuous climate rather than verifiable milestones. The most interesting noun is "properties". Not books, stories, bylines - properties. That word belongs to business, rights, assets. It frames writing less as art than as acquisition, and it nudges the listener toward an equation Hubbard often wanted to control: credibility equals material accumulation.
The subtext is anxiety about authority. Hubbard’s later public identity would be contested, polarizing, and legally embattled; this kind of statement functions as an origin story that doubles as insurance. If he can anchor himself as a proven earner before the controversies, he can argue that his later ambitions weren’t compensatory, desperate, or grift-adjacent - they were the natural extension of a man who already knew how to win.
It’s not just a claim of success; it’s a demand that success be treated as character evidence.
Then comes the slippery timeline. "All during the 30's and actually during the late 40's" sounds precise, but it’s strategically foggy: decades as a smear of productivity, success as a continuous climate rather than verifiable milestones. The most interesting noun is "properties". Not books, stories, bylines - properties. That word belongs to business, rights, assets. It frames writing less as art than as acquisition, and it nudges the listener toward an equation Hubbard often wanted to control: credibility equals material accumulation.
The subtext is anxiety about authority. Hubbard’s later public identity would be contested, polarizing, and legally embattled; this kind of statement functions as an origin story that doubles as insurance. If he can anchor himself as a proven earner before the controversies, he can argue that his later ambitions weren’t compensatory, desperate, or grift-adjacent - they were the natural extension of a man who already knew how to win.
It’s not just a claim of success; it’s a demand that success be treated as character evidence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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