other people's thoughts

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. — E. L. Doctorow

What's real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you'll get better. — Anne Lamott

Write every day and read good books. — Augusten Burroughs, on advice for aspiring writers.

Suppose a person hits you with a stick. It does not make sense to be angry at the stick for hurting you, since the blows were inflicted by a person. Neither does anger toward the person make sense, since the person is compelled by anger (or greed or delusion). Ignorance becomes the villain, overwhelming reason and creating suffering. — Shantideva, 6th Century Buddhist teacher

I wonder if we are not best served by naming ignorance as the enemy to be defeated, even as we act firmly to oppose what we see as wrongdoing in the world, what we recognize as causing pain. This would leave us without human enemies, with only confused people needing help. — Sylvia Boorstein