Justin Lancy

I eventually learned to treat each solitary writing session at home the same way I treat a live performance. In other words, I learned to treat myself with the same care and respect I give to an audience. This was not a trivial lesson. These rituals and preparations function to discharge and clear obscurations and nervous doubts, to invoke our

hope, as Chesterton said, is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate.

E. L. Doctorow once said that "writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of

On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

those with higher socioeconomic status are somewhat dehumanized by their experience of wealth and power. Because they depend less on others to get what they want, they become more self-focused, less aware of those around them, and less likely to experience empathy.

In a tropical landscape one's eye takes in everything except the human beings.

SIX STEPS TO BETTER DECISION-MAKING Step 1—Identify the reasonable set of possible outcomes. Step 2—Identify your preference using the payoff for each outcome—to what degree do you like or dislike each outcome, given your values? Step 3—Estimate the likelihood of each outcome unfolding. Step 4—Assess the relative likelihood of outcomes you like and