The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
I don't like composers who think. It gets in the way of their plagiarism.
A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.