If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.
- Somerset Maugham

It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.
- C. J. Cherryh

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.
- Anton Chekhov

Begin with an individual, and before you know it you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find you have created – nothing.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
- Robert A. Heinlein