The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write.
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.
It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.
I can’t write five words but that I change seven.
It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.
Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
Success comes to a writer as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.
Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
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