I don't know which is worse— to have a bad teacher or no teacher at all. In any case, I believe the teacher's work should be largely negative. He can't put the gift into you, but if he finds it there, he can try to keep it from going in an obviously wrong direction. We can learn how not to write, but this is a discipline that does not simply concern writing itself but concerns the whole intellectual life. A mind cleared of false emotion and false sentiment and egocentricity is going to have at least those roadblocks removed from its path. If you don't think cheaply, then there at least won't be the quality of cheapness in your writing, even though you may not be able to write well. The teacher can try to weed out what is positively bad, and this should be the aim of the whole college. Any discipline can help your writing: logic, mathematics, theology, and of course and particularly drawing. Anything that helps you to see, anything that makes you look. The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that doesn't require his attention.

The stars up close to the moon were pale they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon

(An unhappy childhood was not) an unsuitable preparation for my future, in that it demanded a constant wariness, the habit of observation, and the attendance on moods and tempers; the noting of discrepancies between speech and action; a certain reserve of demeanour; and automatic suspicion of sudden favours.

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world., Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

To acquire knowledge, one must study;but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

What is important is not what you hear said, it's what you observe.

The key to wisdom is silent observation and reflection.

Children observe everything with caution.

We must not only observe but listen to the sound of nature.

Every traveler has their unique observation of the place they have been.

Children observe everything in nature.

Every traveler should make their own observation.

Only use the mind for practical ways in life. Use your deep inner body energy, observation and breath to glide through life.

Observation is an old man s memory.

A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.

Cultivated men and women who do not skim the cream of life, and are attached to the duties, yet escape the harsher blows, make acute and balanced observers.

When we try to observe things that are very small, the act of observation itself will significantly disturb the state we are seeking to measure.

Time, I thought, strips us rudely of the privileges of the bystander, and in the end that couple chatting loudly in bad French in the lobby of the Grande Bretagne (Athens) turns out to be us.

To become the spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.