"Well I don't write, I attempt to scribble here and there. And no, nothing ever so grand as being published"
About this Quote
Self-deprecation can be a shield, especially coming from a lawyer. Keating’s line performs modesty so emphatically it starts to feel strategic: “I don’t write” doesn’t just downplay skill, it disowns the identity. “Attempt to scribble” frames the act as private, almost furtive, as if language is something he visits in off-hours rather than inhabits. Then he tightens the humility screw with “nothing ever so grand as being published,” casting publication as an absurdly lofty mountain he’s not even trying to climb.
The subtext is less “I’m not good” than “Don’t hold me to the standards you apply to writers.” In legal culture, where words are instruments with consequences, admitting to “scribbling” signals a different relationship to language: playful, exploratory, non-binding. It’s a bid for freedom from precision and from judgment. The phrasing also hints at class and gatekeeping: publication as “grand” evokes the prestige economy of letters, the idea that legitimacy arrives only once an institution stamps you. Keating positions himself outside that system, whether by choice or by preemptive retreat.
Context matters because Keating is a lawyer, a profession built on drafting, argument, and rhetorical control. He almost certainly “writes” constantly; he just refuses the romantic label. That tension is the point. The quote is a quiet confession about compartmentalization: one kind of writing pays the bills and carries risk, another kind is a private pressure valve. The humility reads genuine, but it also works as insurance: if you never claim the title, no one can revoke it.
The subtext is less “I’m not good” than “Don’t hold me to the standards you apply to writers.” In legal culture, where words are instruments with consequences, admitting to “scribbling” signals a different relationship to language: playful, exploratory, non-binding. It’s a bid for freedom from precision and from judgment. The phrasing also hints at class and gatekeeping: publication as “grand” evokes the prestige economy of letters, the idea that legitimacy arrives only once an institution stamps you. Keating positions himself outside that system, whether by choice or by preemptive retreat.
Context matters because Keating is a lawyer, a profession built on drafting, argument, and rhetorical control. He almost certainly “writes” constantly; he just refuses the romantic label. That tension is the point. The quote is a quiet confession about compartmentalization: one kind of writing pays the bills and carries risk, another kind is a private pressure valve. The humility reads genuine, but it also works as insurance: if you never claim the title, no one can revoke it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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