It is a truth universally acknowledged, he’d mused, that most people will never find their ‘call me Ishmael’.

I say fuck the old advice 'show, don't tell.' It's called story TELLING for a reason, and I'll stick to it!

When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life.

There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.

A writer needs to ingest love to be passionate. Passion is a metabolite of love, and good writing is an active metabolite of passion.

From school desks with inkwells and scratchy nibs on paper to sweaty finger prints on a tablet... technology progression yes... style?

An author is like an incompetent bricklayer - doesn't use mortar and keeps rearranging the bricks until someone tells him to stop.

The fictive is an emormous territory it turns out, its boundaries vague, and there is little certainty about where it begins and ends.

It can be said that one slip of point of view by a writer can hurt a story badly, and several slips can be fatal.' Stein on Writing

The only 'ironclad rules' in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.

Most days, writing simply requires work-ethic, discipline, clarity, focus, time. Other days...it will demand absolutely everything of you.

...the answer is not in the damn blank page - it's in the days or years before and you have to dredge it up - exhume the past again ...

What do you want? What are you willing to give up to get it? Writing requires you make sacrifices. Be prepared to work hard to be a writer.