You can’t edit a 
blank page.

― Nora Roberts

Presently you shall walk out the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience—the pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers, and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration.

—Stanton Kirkham Davis

Be tough—
you need to be able to accept criticism,
if you expect to become a better writer;
when you know you’re right,
you need to be able to reject it
and stick to your own vision.

—Judith Guest

Try to write something
every day.

—Roger Zelazny

Don’t compare yourself with others
except to learn from them—
compete only with yourself,
maintaining the highest standards
of excellence with yourself.

—Rosemary Daniell

Respect yourself.
Respect the craft of writing.
Respect the reader.

—Karleen Koen

I sometimes begin a drawing with no preconceived problems to solve—
with no conscious aim; but, as my mind takes in what is so produced,
a point arrives where some idea crystallizes,
and then a control and ordering begins to take place.

—Henry Moore

Finish the thing before you start revising.
If you’re working on chapter three and you discover you have to go back
and plant the butler in chapter one,
scribble a note to yourself and keep working on chapter three.
Otherwise you run the risk of having twenty versions of chapter one—
and nothing else.

—Marta Randall

 Everyone is unique. Find out what you have to say that no one else can say;
then perfect the way to say it. That’s all any writer has to sell.
Anybody who can do it can sell anything they write.

—James Gunn