Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. – Samuel Johnson, “Recalling the Advice of a College Tutor,” Boswell, Life of John

The majority of writers ought to translate themselves; there are but few thoughts that are born translated, that is, clothed with the power best fitted alike to express and transmit them. What we have in the first instance written for ourselves, should be written a second time for others. – Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847), Literature. First Section: Literature in Gene

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades, 1947