Dan Becker

“the world has an effectively infinite number of experiences to offer, so getting a handful of them under your belt brings you no closer to a sense of having feasted on life’s possibilities.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

“But as writers, much of the pleasure of writing is finding our balance. Once we have found our confidence in one type of story, it is not unusual to cast our creative eye toward stories we have never told before and for which we have yet to receive evidence that there are readers as interested in those stories as we are. And so the wobble returns. I know so many writers who have written so many books, and nearly all of them seek a fresh discovery of their confidence with each new story they tell. Sit these authors down privately, and they will share their insecurities with you. Yet it is only a game, really, one that is more interesting when it’s challenging. The insecurity, the wobble, merely reminds us of how interesting it is to find what we know already exists. Discovery never gets dull.”
― William Kenower, Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write with Confidence

“In conclusion, then, art is absolutely meaningless. It is, however, also deeply meaningful. That’s a paradox, of course, but we’re all adults here, and I think we can handle it. I think we can all hold two mutually contradictory ideas at the same time without our heads exploding. So let’s give this one a try. The paradox that you need to comfortably inhabit, if you wish to live a contented creative life, goes something like this: “My creative expression must be the most important thing in the world to me (if I am to live artistically), and it also must not matter at all (if I am to live sanely).” Sometimes you will need to leap from one end of this paradoxical spectrum to the other in a matter of minutes, and then back again. As I write this book, for instance, I approach each sentence as if the future of humanity depends upon my getting that sentence just right. I care, because I want it to be lovely. Therefore, anything less than a full commitment to that sentence is lazy and dishonorable. But as I edit my sentence—sometimes immediately after writing it—I have to be willing to throw it to the dogs and never look back. (Unless, of course, I decide that I need that sentence again after all, in which case I must dig up its bones, bring it back to life, and once again regard it as sacred.) It matters./It doesn’t matter. Build space in your head for this paradox. Build as much space for it as you can. Build even more space. You will need it. And then go deep within that space—as far in as you can possibly go—and make absolutely whatever you want to make.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Mael once said there was no answer. For any of this. He said it was the way of things and always would be, and the only redemption that could be found was that all power, no matter how vast, how centralized, no matter how dominant, will destroy itself in the end. What entertained then was witnessing all those expressions of surprise on the faces of the wielders.”
― Steven Erikson, Reaper's Gale