voice

“Three Rules for Literary Success: Read a lot, write a lot, and read a lot more.”

~ Robert Silverberg

“Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven’t been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.” Harlan Ellison

“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.” ~ Virginia Woolf

“Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.” ~ Truman Capote

“All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

~ Ernest Hemingway

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” ~ E. L. Doctorow

“You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money’s in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.”

~ Larry Niven

Everything that doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. And later on you can use it in some story. ~ Tapani Biagge

“Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.” ~ Toni Morrison