"I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first
thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the
subject, always the conventional wisdom.
It’s only by concentrating,
sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come
into play that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make
associations, draw connections, take me by surprise.
And often even the
idea doesn’t turn out to be very good.
I need time to think about it,
too, to make mistakes and recognise them, to make false starts and correct them,
to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on
to the next thing."
William Deresiewica, former professor of English at Yale, in his lecture to the
United States Military academy at West Point in October of 2009.