"I think any start has to be a false start because really thereâ€™s no way to start. You just have to force yourself to sit down and turn off the quality censor. And you have to keep the censor off, or you start second-guessing every other sentence. Sometimes the suspicion of a possible false start comes through, and you have to suppress it to keep writing. But it gets more persistent. And the moment you know itâ€™s really a false start is when you start â€¦ itâ€™s hard to put into words."

-- Elif Batuman

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