Stendhal—I thought

So...there's this thought floating around in my head that Stendhal (Le Rouge et le Noire, that guy) said or, more likely, wrote something along the lines of "if you want to be a writer, write two pages a day—whatever it is, just write".

Of course I cannot find this attributed to him anywhere. All I find are annoying advice fora that tell you to write every day. So, dear reader(s), if you exist: help a brother out? Did I make this up? Did the man never say anything of the sort?

God's only excuse is that he does not exist.

- Stendhal

Alexander von Humboldt

Objects with which we are acquainted only by the animated narratives of travellers have a peculiar charm; imagination wanders with delight over that which is vague and undefined; and the pleasures we are deprived of seem to possess a fascinating power, compared with which all we daily feel in the narrow circle of sedentary life appears insipid.