Try to be Anything Else

First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age--say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire... 
  -- How to Become a Writer -- Lorrie Moore



Holden’s History of the United States
R.I.P.  J. D. Salinger (1919–2010) & Howard Zinn (1922–2010)