why I write

I started realizing that the way to get outside myself was to go further in.

We don’t have control of certain forums, but we can do a lot on a page.

Mill is trying to figure out what he believes is true, and what he can stand for, and how to live. But the way he does it is, at first glance, the opposite of feeling: he is constructing a system of thought, a philosophy. He is hunting down the contradictions in his intuitions and his thoughts; he insists on finding ways of thinking that allow him

Being at the edge of something means that there’s something new ahead. You’ve come up against the wall of the proverbial box, whether that’s your own capacities, your own knowledge, your expertise of a medium. You can either retreat away from the edges and stay in the box or tear it down and build a new one. Or decide that boxes actually aren’t

But this silly desire to be an exceptional young writer wasn’t egoistic craving. It was a biological obligation. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t turn it off. Even when he tried not to write, he was writing. He imagined paragraphs in his head, imagined whole novels, composed of sentences that weren’t even made up of words, just the essence of

ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.