Preserve by letting go

I had never, in all of my life, known a silence that profound.

Sound is life.

You don't have to write something perfect. You don't have to write something timeless. You have to write something that befriends one reader.

Befriend one reader that will close the last page and feel that their life was illuminated in some way.

Nothing endures. Nothing does. But how much we put into [our creative work], how much heart — that is the measure of our lives.

...and every day I carry with me that thing that I came to understand, that now flows in my veins, and that is that nothing endures, nothing does. And maybe nothing should endure. But how much we put into it, how much heart we put into it, that is the measure of our lives. There may be, in fact, no other measure of our lives."

"(By this point,) I had enough rejections to wallpaper my entire apartment."