Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as a consolation in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do.
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Enger on Words as Tracks
"Words are one way we leave tracks in the world, Sol. Maybe one day you will write a book, like Olaus did, or Molly Thorn. And people will read it, like I've been reading to you. And they will know that you were here, and a little about what you were like."
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Tartt on Psychology and Fate
"But even Plato knew that class and conditioning and so forth have an inalterable effect on the individual. It seems to me that psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate."
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Cave on Constraints and Creativity
I have come to understand that the muscle of the imagination is strengthened through resistance, discipline, and order. These institutional bonds ultimately become a form of liberation where our dreams, alert and concentrated, can find their focus and run truly free.
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Neuhaus on Wisdom and Wonder
We are cast upon God when we wonder. In wonder is wisdom born. The most elementary and at the same time the most profound of questions is, "Why is there anything at all and not nothing?" "Why am I?" We must never be embarrassed about asking something so basic, so apparently naive. In our supposed sophistication, we may suppress the question, we may become practiced at forgetting it, but we never really get beyond it. The fact that I find myself in a boundless world of innumerable existent beings is astonishing beyond measure.