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A writing teacher once started the class with this quote:

"I will stop making that noise. If I stop making that noise I will hear something very beautiful." Maria Lania

It was several years ago, and I still have it posted on my desk. I have found that some of the best advice for living comes out of advice for writing. Perhaps it is that for the writer living and writing are inseparable, or perhaps in order to write well one must live well, or observe living well. Whatever the reason, the advice suits both activities.

It speaks of the importance of silence, of what will come out of the quiet if you listen very carefully. What comes is distilled, simmered down to the truth. In that truth, beauty. Out of that beauty, words. To live by.