# Quote — Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace

> The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.

- Author: [Václav Havel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel.md)
- Book: [Disturbing the Peace](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel#Disturbing_the_Peace_(1986)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace/the-role-of-the

## More from this book

> The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning — in other words, of absurdity — the more energetically meaning is sought.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace/the-deeper-the.md)

> We introduced a new model of behavior: don't get involved in diffuse general ideological polemics with the center, to whom numerous concrete causes are always being sacrificed; fight "only" for those concrete causes, and be prepared to fight for them unswervingly, to the end. In other words, don't get mixed up in backroom wheeling and dealing, but play an open game.

p. 83 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace/we-introduced-a-new.md)

> Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have — by disrupting that order — a way of surprising.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/vaclav-havel/disturbing-the-peace/drama-assumes-an-order.md)