Perhaps

…one of the most appealing qualities to me in other writers is a series of three:

People who have:

• Encountered themselves.

• Stepped back from themselves

• Written about the duality of themselves or of experience. For example, I want to do things but I also don’t want to deal with them. Amor Towles does this brillantly in A Gentleman in Moscow:

  • “Preparing for a potential celenration is a tricky business. If Fortune smiles, then one must be ready to hit the ceiling with a cork. But if fortune shrugs, the one must be prepared to act as if this was just another night, one of no particular consequence - and then later sink the unopened bottle to the bottom of the sea. “