McPhee to writers "You're going to get there."

"When a person is twenty-one or twenty-two years old and facing that great enigma about what to do, envying the law students or medical students who can get on a set of rails and run on it and know where they're going, the writer doesn't know. But a writer should also bear in mind there are numerous paths to this goal and they're all O.K….You're going to get there. If the person expects the big answer at twenty-one, that's ridiculous. Everyone's in the dark."

(John McPhee quoted in Literary J...