"Making art requires wrestling with ghosts. They’re inescapable. Specters of the artist’s heroes loom invisibly from some great beyond, peering at the scribbles or dances or paintings. Traces of every person who’s ever praised or criticized the artist’s talent, no matter how qualified — an aunt, a gallery director, a high school theater critic — linger in the air, whispering. Only very confident, very arrogant, or very foolish artists entirely tune them out."