This above all, ask yourself, in the stillest hour of the night:

‘Must I write?’

Delve deep into yourself.

And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple ‘I must’ then build your life according to this necessity: your life, even into its most indifferent and slightest hour, must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it.

Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet.