The Problem of Reading

The problem of writing is, to a large extent, the problem of reading. Good thoughts never arrive fully formed out of nowhere. They are connected to the things that we observe, experience, feel, and read. There is no pure or empty thought. Thought is always about something. But it's difficult to write about something when you don't know anything, or when you feel that you don't know anything, or when the things that you know are the same things that millions of other people have known before you and that hundreds have already written down, and with more eloquence.