Oh friends!: Brenda Ueland

The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is:
"Tell me more. Tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out." 
And if you have no such friend,--and you want to write,--well, then you must imagine one.  
Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit