Art & Creativity Quote by Don Marquis

Marquis skewers a whole professional reflex: the way journalism can dress up the obvious and sell it back as insight. “Stroke a platitude” is a perfect little act of contempt. A platitude is already domesticated language, the verbal equivalent of furniture you stop noticing. To “stroke” it suggests both laziness and complicity, the writer soothing a tame idea until it performs on cue. Then comes the punchline: it “purrs like an epigram.” The sentence turns on that feline verb, implying the newsroom’s prized product is not truth but a pleasing sound, a little self-satisfied vibration that signals “smart” without requiring risk.

The subtext is less “journalists are dumb” than “journalistic incentives are corrupting.” Paragraphing, supposedly a craft of clarity and structure, becomes a technique for creating the illusion of bite. Marquis is pointing at a specific kind of copy: the crisp paragraph that snaps shut with a witty turn, the clean conclusion that feels earned but is actually prepackaged. Epigrams are meant to be sharp; here, sharpness is simulated through grooming.

Context matters: Marquis wrote in an era when mass-circulation papers were industrializing attention, standardizing voice, and rewarding speed. In that environment, the small unit of the paragraph becomes a factory product, optimized for consumption. His line also lands as a warning to readers: if it purrs, check whether it’s been fed anything real.