In de New Yorker is het mooie verhaal van Gabriel Garcia Márquez te lezen waarin hij verhaalt hoe hij zijn eerste stappen zette in zijn schrijversloopbaan.

“In any case, that story already belongs to the past,” he concluded. “What matters now is the next one.”

I was flabbergasted and foolish enough to look for arguments to the contrary, until I understood that no advice I heard would be more intelligent than his.