“Be regular and orderly in your life,” Flaubert had said, “that you may be violent and original in your work.”
This is one of my favorite quotes, and every author knows what Flaubert means. To think deeply, to be creative, to plumb the depths of your soul, one must eliminate life’s distractions. Easier said than done, of course, but this is why so many of us are on our laptops at three in the morning. In his Pensees, Pascal put it this way: “The chief problem of man is that he cannot sit quietly in his room.” ... Which is what every writer must do!
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