The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
—Ayn Rand

There’s nothing to writing; All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
—Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

So write…Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherf****r.
—Sugar

Achieving success is like wrestling a gorilla: You don’t quit when you’re tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.
—Robert Strauss

Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté.
—Margaret Atwood

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
—E.L. Doctorow

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
—Toni Morrison

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.
—Molière

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus

Write your first draft with your heart.  Re-write with your head.
—Finding Forrester

Good writing is rewriting.
—Truman Capote

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
—Saul Bellow

I really think that if there’s any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, it’s self-consciousness.
—Andre Dubus III

To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.
—Allen Ginsberg

My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.
―Alan Moore (shout-out to my fellow genre-benders)

You don’t want to just tell your character’s story; you want to tell their truth.
—my husband