George Orwell: ‘Why I Write’
First published: Gangrel. — GB, London. — Summer 1946.

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.