All the Masters have something to say about writing...from advice to commentary to just plain complaint. Here's a bit of all of it.
To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over....
(John Hersey)
If you would write emotionally, be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears, do not let them see you cry.
(James J. Kilpatrick)
This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate my work' and it has simply come back stamped 'Not at this address'. Just keep looking for the right address.
(Barbara Kingsolver)
We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.
(Anne Lamott)
We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.
(Somerset Maugham)
[Editors] drive us nuts. We go from near-worshipful groveling when we submit to bitter cursing when they reject us.
(Ken Rand)
All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person.
(Jean Rhys)
Writers are living compilations of moments, which they reinterpret and revisit, carving them into characters and stories.
(jms)
A science fiction story is a story with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its scientific content.
(Theodore Sturgeon)
My work...is to shatter the faith of men here, there, and everywhere, faith in affirmation, faith in negation, and faith in abstention from faith, and this for the sake of faith in faith itself.
(Miguel de Unamuno)
The long-lived books of tomorrow are concealed somewhere amongst the so-far unpublished MSS of today.
(Philip Unwin)