People
It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.
— Gertrude Stein
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
Stein pokes fun at the romantic image of genius, suggesting that behind flashes of brilliance is actually a lot of unglamorous stillness. Being a genius, in her telling, mostly means enduring long stretches of apparent idleness, sitting around doing nothing so thoroughly it becomes a kind of discipline.
Context reviewed