If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.
Develop craftsmanship through years of wide reading.
...all them things I don't know could get you killed if I come to know them
Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.
I wish I knew how to quit you.
I think it's important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience.