1
“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” — Harper Lee
2
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ― W. Somerset Maugham
3
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” — George Orwell
4
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” ― Robert Frost
5
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ― Ray Bradbury
6
“Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.” — Henry David Thoreau
7
“The first draft of anything is shit.” ― Ernest Hemingway
8
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” ― Jack London
9
“In the planning stage of a book, don’t plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.” ― Rose Tremain
10
“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.” — Joyce Carol Oates
11
“Always be a poet, even in prose.” ― Charles Baudelaire
12
“Don’t go into great detail describing places and things… You don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.” ― Elmore Leonard
13
“Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.” ― Zadie Smith
14
“My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.” ― Anton Chekhov
15
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupery
