Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing.
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
September 12th: Be down to earth, or be brought down
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Zeno always said that nothing was more unbecoming than putting on airs, especially with the young. — Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.22
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lordlooks at the heart.”
Ryan Holiday, The 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don't imagine it impossible —for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you. —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.19
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 A.M. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.
Be careful with your heroes: Don't put any of them on a pedestal Ernie Zelinski, 101 Really Important Things You Already Know but keep forgetting
"Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."
quipped American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The ultimate tragedy, is the vast majority of modern hero- worshipers in the Western world who revere false heroes. So much so, that hero is one of the most misused words in English language.
