Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

...a writer without authority? Impossible. as Kenneth Burke says, creation implies authority in the sense of originator....

...people quote proverbs without realizing they're really in awe of the authority of their truth and the power of their expression...

Upon the one thing every writer absolutely must have, and that is intellectual curiosity.

...how many writers still dare compare a woman to Nature, like Campion? - there is a garden in her face - how lovely...

Just write. That's my only tip. And read. I guess that's two.