Because every
story begins
with words

Elbert Hubbard

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

Gloria Steinem

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

Matthew Arnold

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

Robert A. Heinlein