Marge Piercy...

Writers are like crows; they carry off what is bright and shiny, without respect for its original use or intent.

Thornton Wilder...

Everybody should eavesdrop once in a while. There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.

John Le Carre...

A spy,

like a writer,

lives outside the mainstream population.

He steals his experience

through bribes and reconstructs it.

Shannon Stacey...

Fold it into a lovely and graceful Origami swan, and then step on its little head.

From "Thirteen things you can do with a printed copy of a negative review."

Gustave Flaubert...

Writing is a dog's life,

but the only life

worth living.

Paul Kane...

"As for goals, I don't set myself those anymore. I'm not one of these 'I must have achieved this and that by next year' kind of writers. I take things as they come and find that patience and persistence tend to win out in the end."

Flannery O'Connor...

"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."

The Quran...

"Of those who plot,
God is best."

Edgar Allan Poe...

"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat."

Vladimir Nabokov...

"Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash."

Herman Melville...

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it."

John Updike...

"I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head."

Richard Russo...

"I have some ideas simmering, but I don't think it's such a bad thing to let them simmer for a while before I put pen to paper."

Jerzy Kosinski...

"I don't fret over lost time-I can always use the situations in a novel."

Judy Delton...

"A writer can no longer put all his eggs in one basket. If you write fiction, try nonfiction. If you can't sell a book, channel it into an article. A poem into a more salable essay. Be flexible. It's a leap to find out you can adjust, modify, diversify. It's exciting to explore a new genre and find out you can do it well. By taking a risk in another direction, you experience growth."

Alan Garner...

"When you start, the world of publishing seems like a great cathedral citadel of talent, resisting attempts to let you inside. It isn't like that at all. It may be more difficult now, and take longer than when I started to write, but there's a great, empty warehouse out there looking for simple talent."

Paul Kane...

"As for my style, it's a hard one to pin down for them I suspect because I'm very chameleon-like when it comes to writing. I work in so many different styles depending on what I'm producing - for example the comedy style is totally different to the psychological one."

Neil Simon...

"Rewriting is when writing really gets to be fun. . . . In baseball you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball."

H. L. Mencken...

"I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk."

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)...

"When you are describing,

A shape, or sound, or tint;

Don't state the matter plainly,

But put it in a hint;

And learn to look at all things,

With a sort of mental squint."