On Success

This is what my father tells me when he speaks of success: 

“My boy,” he says, “do everything just a little better. Put a little more into everything and you’ll be great. Where is the difference between Dostoyevsky and the author of a gossip article? Is it in the single word? The single sentence? The single paragraph? Maybe old Dostoyevsky chooses a word that’s just a little, tiny, small and insignificant amount better than that hack writing for People. You look at the single word and you say, ‘well, damn, Dostoyevsky don’t have too much on this other guy.’ But that adds up, my boy, it all adds up.”