Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind. – Catherine Drinker Bowen, Atlantic, December 1957

It is not my sentence that I polish, but my thought. I pause until the drop of light that I need is formed and falls from my pen. – Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), translated from French by George H. Calvert, 1

It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers; nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation. – Samuel Johnson, 1751