MFA hopefuls seek therapeutic self-permission rather than fame or fortune.

Evidence

In each case, what strikes me aren’t the particulars—age, attitude, ambitions—so much as their essential motive. What they really want isn’t fame or fortune but permission to articulate feelings that were somehow off limits within the fragile habitat of their families. They are hoping to find, by means of literary art, braver and more-forgiving versions of themselves. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 142

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• CANDY: Almond’s observation that students want ‘permission to articulate feelings that were off limits within the fragile habitat of their families’ is a quotable, humanizing nugget.

Related

• MFA aspirants seek therapeutic self-permission rather than literary fame (similarity 0.89)