Why I Write

George Orwell, 1947

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy,
and at the very bottom of their motives
there lies a mystery.
Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle,
like a long bout of some painful illness.
One would never undertake such a thing
if one were not driven on by some demon
whom one can neither resist nor understand.
For all one knows
that demon is simply the same instinct
that makes a baby squall for attention.
And yet it is also true
that one can write nothing readable
unless one constantly struggles
to efface one's own personality.
Good prose is like a windowpane.
I cannot say with certainty
which of my motives are the strongest,
but I know which of them deserve to be followed.
And looking back through my work,
I see that it is invariably
where I lacked a political purpose
that I wrote lifeless books
and was betrayed into purple passages,
sentences without meaning,
decorative adjectives
and humbug generally.