So at some point I guess I subscribed to a Substack’s emails even though I don’t have Substack. By Shaun Usher, it’s called “Letters of Note,” and it shares letters from notable people on this day in history. I’ve still yet to read the actual Substack (nor do I know what a Substack is really) because I’m not downloading an app, but I do enjoy the snippets of letters I get via email. And the 10/1/25 missives have some choice excerpts.

This one reminds me that even incredibly smart and successful people feel like imposters most of the time, and few of us know what the heck we’re doing:

No one really takes very much interest, why should they, in my scribblings. Do you think I shall ever write a really good book?

— Virginia Woolf, 1905

Well, this seems relevant!

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.

— Hunter S. Thompson, 1958

I rather love this next one. Hell yes, autumn, and Hell yes, George Eliot (really enjoyed Middlemarch, plus [pertinent to our site] she allegedly invented the term “pop” culture, and the aforementioned Woolf was a fan, which is enough for me!).

Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

— George Eliot, 1841

I can never decide how much I like his writing, but I do enjoy this from Hemingway:

What you ought to do is write you big lazy bastard. My god it is hard for anybody to write. I never start a damn thing without knowing 200 times I can’t write—never will be able to write a line—can’t go on—can’t get started—stuff is rotten—can’t say what I mean—know there is a whole fine complete thing and all I get of it is the bacon rinds. You would write better than anybody but the minute it becomes impossible you stop. That is the time you have to go on through and then it gets easier. It always gets utterly and completely impossible.

Thank God it does—otherwise everybody would write and I would starve to death.

— Ernest Hemingway, 1928

And finally, who amongst us has not felt this way, especially lately?

I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.

— Charles Darwin, 1861

Now, did I just shamelessly crib this entire header from an email from a Substack that I don’t even read? I sure did!

Be kind to yourselves and each other, Avocados; do what you can, and don’t beat yourself up for what you can’t. And lay off Mayor McSquirrel!