Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.
Above all, do not lie to yourself.
Above all, don't lie to yourself.
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good.
Occupy yourself with what's in your life now. Address those situations and subjects as fully as possible with your best efforts. That is what produces happiness and clarity and knowledge and power.
To occupy yourself with tasks that are useful to yourself and others, you can get your mind off your problems.
As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people.
For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.
Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the imperfections of others.
Occupy yourself, and you will be out of harm's way.
As much as there is joy in writing, there's always the little bit of terror to keep you on edge, on your toes. It is a strange way to occupy yourself - to enjoy your life on a daily basis. There is no guarantee that something great is going to come next.
When you're dealing with killing people and things that are upsetting, that can be a delicate place to occupy yourself for a day.
My hope is that the work is in some way counter-pinup. A pinup asks you to suspend interest in who the person is and occupy yourself entirely with looking at the body and fantasizing about what you could do with that body, completely ignoring how the person might feel about it.
or simply:
