Delmore Schwartz’s “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.”

but I knew there was another way to be. I had seen it in her. I just didn’t know how to get there.

sonata. I didn’t consider the meaning of the word practice. It would be many years before I began to understand that all of life is practice: writing, driving, hiking, brushing teeth, packing lunch boxes, making beds, cooking dinner, making love, walking dogs, even sleeping. We are always practicing. Only practicing.

Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.

a feeling mind, a thinking heart. A lived life.

If we inhabit his body as he walks down the path, things will happen in the writing:

Almost everything that has happened in my writing life has been the result of keeping my head down and doing the work.

Most of us can’t tolerate extended breaks. We are reminded how lousy, how out of touch we feel when we’re away from the page. So as you come to the end, promise yourself—as I am promising myself—that you will sit down tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Not to start something new. Not with the expectations or fantasies of what you might (or m

Though we are alone in our rooms, alone with our demons, our inner censors, our teachers remind us that we’re not alone in the endeavor.