Monday, December 01, 2008

How to be a writer

...a writer cannot afford to give in to feelings of rage, disgust, or contempt. Did you answer someone in a temper? If so, you didn't hear him out and lost track of his system of opinions. You avoided someone out of disgust--and a completely unknown personality slipped out of your ken--precisely the type you would have needed some day. But, however tardily, I nonetheless caught myself and realized I had always devoted my time and attention to people who fascinated me and were pleasant, who engaged my sympathy, and that as a result I was seeing society like the Moon, always from one side.


Alexsandr I Solzenitzyn
The Gulag Archipelago Two

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