You need to be passionate about the creative work that you're doing, but you need to be kind of emotionally separated from how people react to it or how it does. Those things should be secondary, and primary should be your love of the creative act.
Veronica RothBut that wasnยดt the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my motherโs false funeral, and walking the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didnโt see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she jumped. I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.
Veronica RothValuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places.
Veronica RothI feel the urge, familiar now, to wrench myself from my body and speak directly into her mind. It is the same urge, I realize, that makes me want to kiss her every time I see her, because even a sliver of distance between us is infuriating. Our fingers, loosely woven a moment ago, now clutch together, her palm tacky with moisture, mine rough in places where I have grabbed too many handles on too many moving trains. Now she looks pale and small, but her eyes make me think of wide-open skies that I have never actually seen, only dreamed of.
Veronica Roth