phillip lopate on the antidote to professional envy in the nyt:
“Fortunately, the solution to such a painful dilemma is always close by. I am referring to a sense of perspective. We are all soon to be dust and ashes under the aspect of eternity — a comfortingly modest thought. There is nothing, I repeat, in an author more becoming than modesty. I myself am, when all is said and done, exquisitely modest. I recognize my talent is a small one, and it has taken me further than I ever imagined when I started out in adolescence on the writing path. So I will conclude by expressing my abject gratitude to the powers that be for recognizing me to the degree they have seen fit. We will leave it at that.”
