About paying attention

"Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on. Now, if you ask me, what's going on is that we are all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that not yell at another. Otherwise we'd all be barking away like Pekingese: 'Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it's all your fault, you did this . . . ' Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein. But you can't do it if you're not respectful. If you look at people and just see sloppy clothes or rich clothes, you're going to get them wrong." - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird.