Vigorous writing is concise.

—William Strunk, Jr

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

 —Stephen King

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

—T.S. Eliot

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

 —Robert Heinlein

A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

—Junot Diaz

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

 —Henry David Thoreau

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.

—Ray Bradbury

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

—Robert Benchley

Hard writing makes easy reading.

—Wallace Stegner

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

—Lillian Hellman

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth... But amusing? Never.

—Edna Ferber

The secret of good writing is telling the truth.

—Gordon Lish

You always find things you didn’t know you were going to say, and that is the adventure of writing.

 —John Updike

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

—Rita Mae Brown