Life & Wisdom Quote by Raymond E. Feist

Feist’s line lands because it refuses the two easiest myths about writing: that it’s effortless inspiration, or that it’s noble suffering. “Writing is hard work” is almost aggressively plainspoken, a craftsperson’s admission that the job is built from hours, deadlines, revisions, and the particular loneliness of making a world out of sentences that keep failing until they don’t. He’s not trying to romanticize the pain; he’s normalizing it. The semicolon is the hinge: difficulty isn’t a prelude to the point, it’s part of the point.

Then comes the tonal pivot: “it’s also the best job I’ve ever had.” The subtext is gratitude without sentimentality. Feist, a career fantasy novelist who’s spent decades producing large, immersive series, knows that “hard” doesn’t disqualify “best” - it validates it. The satisfaction is proportional to the grind. That’s a working writer’s ethic: the pleasure isn’t only in the finished book or the fan response, but in the sustained permission to do this as a life, to take the work seriously because it feeds you (financially, creatively, existentially).

Context matters: fantasy has long been treated as “escapist” or easy, a genre people assume is powered by vibe rather than labor. Feist quietly rebukes that condescension. The line reads like advice to aspirants and a reality check to readers: you can love the magic and still respect the machinery. It’s a modest sentence with a stubborn message - joy isn’t the absence of difficulty; it’s the decision to keep choosing it.