Art & Creativity Quote by A. J. Liebling

Liebling’s line lands like a newsroom door swinging shut: write well, and don’t ask me for a recipe. It’s brisk, almost rude, and that’s the point. As a journalist who watched generations of would-be writers hunt for tricks, credentials, and permission slips, he’s drawing a hard border around the only standard that matters: the work on the page. The first clause is pure gatekeeping, but in the honest sense. Not “write your truth,” not “find your voice,” not “follow these ten steps.” Write well.

Then he twists the knife with “and how is your own business.” The subtext is equal parts anti-mysticism and anti-handholding. Craft is real, but Liebling refuses to turn it into a priesthood. If you want to outline, outline; if you want to rewrite thirty times, rewrite; if you want to steal structure from better writers and learn by imitation, do it. The method is private; the result is public. That’s the ethic of old-school journalism: you’re not paid for your process, you’re judged on clarity, accuracy, and force.

There’s also a sly defense against the culture of advice. Writers love talking about writing because it feels like work without being accountable to the sentence. Liebling’s barb warns that process-talk can become a substitute for output, and “how” can become an alibi. In a field awash in hacks and hustle, he’s arguing for a brutal meritocracy: no one owes you a map, but everyone owes the reader competence.