When beginning, be humble. Remember that your first, blank page has this in common with all other blank pages. It has not read your previous works. Don't be enthralled by the sound of your own voice. John Irving
Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance. James Baldwin
It would be wisest not to worry too much about the sterile periods. They ventilate the subject and instill into it the reality of daily life. Andre Gide
I write anything serious by hand still.... There’s that wonderful phrase of Wordsworth’s about “feeling along the heart,” and I think I write with the blood that goes to the ends of my fingers, and it is a very sensuous act. A. S. Byatt
Writing requires a constant pursuit, if not embrace, of the unfamiliar, the foreign, the uncomfortable—and creativity often begins only once we leave our comfort zones. David Corbett
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style
I'd like, each time out as a writer, to reinvent who I am and what I'm doing. That's one of the great pleasures and rewards of the occupation. Richard Powers
"Every project I undertake is a massive, massive display of overconfidence.Every time human beings embark on an endeavor, they reach beyond themselves, trying to figure something out without the full picture. And, to an extent, that’s a really human and beautiful thing." Amanda Montell
Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” Tom Stoppard
When the Grim Reaper comes to get me, he'll have to give me a few extra hours to revise my last words. Flannery O'Connor