Yashvardhan Jain

Stephen Sondheim replied right away. He offered love and sympathy — “and tea, if you want it.” His protégé’s predicament seemed totally understandable. “I don’t know why this hasn’t paralyzed you already,” he emailed back. “I’m sure it’s already occurred to you, but the simplest way is the best. Isolate yourself from everything but family and... See more

Perhaps this is an obvious one, but please do not check your email or the news or your texts or your social media or anything like that right when you wake up. (Get a real clock; don’t sleep in the same room as your phone.)

I’m not one of those people who think you have to write from some sacred, semi-subconscious state of mind that’s closest to... See more

There may be many instructions out there for how or why to keep a diary or waste book or whatever, but my sense is that when a writer keeps a journal, its main benefit is not increased productivity or emotional balance or even practice for our rapidly degrading handwriting—for a writer, keeping a journal or otherwise writing sentences and... See more

When there’s too much to care about, what’s a good-hearted person to do?

Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any of that guidance, how pertinent any of that wisdom, in the end you... See more

Resentment is the price you eventually pay for abandoning yourself.

So don’t study and grind away too much, for that makes one sterile. Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don’t take art and love too seriously—there is very little one can do about it, it is mainly a question of temperament.