If I could use a time machine, I would go back to the time when the grading system was invented and I would destroy it. Because of its invention, teaching ceased to be a calling and became a profession. I can only imagine the amount of potential we kill every time teachers give a student a grade of 5. A grade is but a number. Never let anyone judge you by a number, much less yourself. The day you start caring about your grades is the day you stop learning. A card of excellence is just a piece of paper. It will rot. But the knowledge you get because you wanted to learn—that’s yours forever, or you could pass it on.

Every now and then I’ll run into really good writers who have nothing to say. And at that point you want to say, ‘Well, okay. Stop writing and go and get a job somewhere. Go around the world. Go do stuff. Go and get your heart broken and then come back and write some more.’