“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or another book: give it, give it all, give it now.”
–Annie Dillard
“Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.”
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Be still when you have nothing to say: when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.’
–D.H. Lawrence
“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it–wholeheartedly–and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
–Arthur Quiller-Couch
“A sentence should read as if its author, had he a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.”
–Henry David Thoreau
“Only write when your pillow is on fire.”
–Elie Wiesel