Advice for writers.

We do not see the sun by reflected light, we see the sun by its own light, and the day after Prometheus gave us that gift we who were satellites, creatures like others, entirely--flowing--where influence came, we became a new creature, something entirely different, all of us. You, you, you did. From having been a moon, you became a sun. . . .

Any serious work that a human being does must be looking for this light. And if you don't find this light, you will be able to write, and to be a writer--either as a parrot or a whore, of course. But you'll never find the truth.

"Writing Against Your Life. The 1986 'Gift of Fire' Speech." Richard Mitchell, The Underground Grammarian.