“The point is the product.”
I came across this quote some time in the past few weeks, and I knew it was from Nora Ephron, but I could not find the source. It seems that no one else finds it as consequential as I do. It is from her 1975 essay “Dorothy Schiff and the New York Post.” (If you want to locate it, it is right before the recipe.)
I was thinking of this quote when I was writing on Monday about J.J. Jackson and his incredibly upbeat song about a broken heart, “It’s Alright.” (Cee-lo Green’s “Fuck you” carries strong echoes of Jackson, if you want a more contemporary example.)
Let’s spend a moment on this quote, and why I think it’s so damn fine. The point. The point means, why do anything? And what comes out of your life? What comes out of experience, and what do you do with your experience? The point of life, if you want to get heavy about it.
The product. It’s not what you think or how you feel about things that matters. It is what you create. This is the world of action, of deeds, of making things.
So make the thing. That is the point.