I’m not ashamed of learning from others. It is not a problem for me to admit that I’m far not as clever as Stephen Hawking and in this life I’m not even going to approach him. What’s more! Actually I happily declare that I don’t have to struggle with forced compliance under the burden of “I know everything” and I’m happy due to the fact and experience that there is no person from whom I couldn’t learn something. Everybody is able to seem clever or be a smart aleck, but not everybody is capable of being open-minded, paying attention to others or learning from others. I believe the latter requires more wisdom; anyway life constantly brings further things to learn to my way, so it’s worth paying attention to everybody’s life experience and wisdom.
When All Seems Lost — and Even When It Doesn’t… As a writer, I read more than average. Not necessarily books that fall within my immediate interests, but rather those I can learn from, marvel at, analyze word by word, and sometimes even those that demand more effort from me than usual. That is how it is with Alice Munro. I bought my first book by her when she received the Nobel Prize. Then life happened, and the volume sat on my bookshelf—either I had no time for it, or it lingered somewhere at the bottom of my list of priorities. When I finally picked it up, I could hardly believe my eyes—or my reaction. First, I was utterly outraged; my blood pressure shot through the roof in an instant, and I almost started swearing in disbelief. I had barely skimmed the first few lines, yet that was enough to know: it was perfect. A true masterpiece. Excellence among the excellent. Every word reached the deepest layers of my soul. I was touched by its purity, its delicacy, the noblest simpli...
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