People who try to boss themselves always want (however kindly) to boss other people. They always think they know best and are so stern and resolute about it they are not very open to new and better ideas.

So remember these two things: you are talented and you are original. Be sure of that. I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in writing.

Write a true, careless, slovenly impulsive, honest diary every day of your life.

Think of yourself as incandescent power, illuminated perhaps and forever talked to by God and his messengers.

We should all know this: that listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role.

Creative listeners are those who want you to be recklessly yourself, even at your very worst, even vituperative, bad-tempered. They are laughing and just delighted with any manifestation of yourself, bad or good. For true listeners know that if you are bad-tempered it does not mean that you are always so. They don't love you just when you are nice; they love all of you.

The tragedy of bold, forthright, industrious people is that they act so continuously without much thinking, that it becomes dry and empty.