Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly. But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music.
You can never tell you the mountain will allow and who it will not.
A partner can encourage you, maybe even stop you from falling, but they can't get you to the top. That's entirely up to you.
When you do your research write down whatever interests you. Whatever stimulates your imagination. Whatever seems important. A story is built like a stone wall. Not all the stones will fit. Some will have to be discarded. Some broken and reshaped. When you finish the wall it may not look exactly like the wall you envisioned, but it will keep the livestock in and the predators out. (pg. 144)
. . . what makes a story unique is not necessarily the information in the story but what the writer chooses to put in or leave out. (pg. 146-147)
a good writer should draw the reader in by starting in the middle of the story with a hook, then go back and fill in what happened before the hook. Once you have the reader hooked, you can write whatever you want as you slowly reel them in.
For a climber, saying that you are stopping by Everest is like saying that you are stopping by to see God.
Life sucks, then you die. Then it sucks again.
I am afraid that we are beginning to be over-educated; at least everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching -that is really what our enthusiasm for education has come to.
I think no matter what you do you can't please everybody. You have to ask yourself, "Did I do what I set out to do?"
Is there any man that thinks in chains like the man who calls himself a free-thinker? Is there any man so credulous as the man who will not believe in the Bible? He swallows a ton of difficulties, and yet complains that we have swallowed an ounce of them. He has much more need of faith of a certain sort than we have, for skepticism has far harder problems than faith.