"The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon"
About this Quote
Benchley’s joke lands because it drapes a very old anxiety in the most laughably petty costume. He doesn’t say the obstacle is talent, discipline, money, editors, or the terror of the blank page. He says it’s the typewriter ribbon: a mundane, ink-stained chore that takes 30 seconds and somehow feels like climbing Everest when you’re avoiding work. The comedy is misdirection with a truth serum chaser. Procrastination isn’t usually grand; it’s domestic.
The intent is twofold: a one-liner that flatters the audience’s self-recognition, and a quiet skewering of the “professional writer” mystique. Benchley, a humorist who lived inside deadlines and magazine culture, knew that writers are often rewarded for performing difficulty. By blaming the ribbon, he mocks the melodrama writers attach to their own process. The subtext is that the real obstacle is psychological: resistance, fear of being judged, dread of mediocrity. The ribbon becomes a perfect scapegoat because it’s concrete. You can point to it. You can resent it. You can make it the villain instead of admitting you’re stuck.
The period detail matters. In Benchley’s era, writing was literally mechanical: ribbons, keys, carbon copies. The ribbon also stands in for the tiny frictions of creative labor that technology never quite eliminates; swap in printer ink, a software update, a dead laptop battery. His punchline survives because it’s not about typewriters. It’s about the human genius for turning a trivial inconvenience into an alibi - and how that alibi can feel, in the moment, like solid evidence.
The intent is twofold: a one-liner that flatters the audience’s self-recognition, and a quiet skewering of the “professional writer” mystique. Benchley, a humorist who lived inside deadlines and magazine culture, knew that writers are often rewarded for performing difficulty. By blaming the ribbon, he mocks the melodrama writers attach to their own process. The subtext is that the real obstacle is psychological: resistance, fear of being judged, dread of mediocrity. The ribbon becomes a perfect scapegoat because it’s concrete. You can point to it. You can resent it. You can make it the villain instead of admitting you’re stuck.
The period detail matters. In Benchley’s era, writing was literally mechanical: ribbons, keys, carbon copies. The ribbon also stands in for the tiny frictions of creative labor that technology never quite eliminates; swap in printer ink, a software update, a dead laptop battery. His punchline survives because it’s not about typewriters. It’s about the human genius for turning a trivial inconvenience into an alibi - and how that alibi can feel, in the moment, like solid evidence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|
More Quotes by Robert
Add to List
