why writers get better as they get older

You know what makes for really great art – whether literature or something else?

Pain.

Because great art speaks to the human condition, and the one constant of the human condition is suffering.

That is why writers are (almost) always better at 30 than they were at 20, and 50 than they were at 40. They’ve suffered more, in ways great and small, and can infuse that into their work – creating better art, art that speaks more readily to the reader.

-JM