Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. – A. Bronson Alcott

Every word born of an inner necessity — writing must never be anything else. – Etty Hillesum, quoted in Ten Fun Things to Do Before You Die by Karol Jackowski

There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters. – Miguel de Cervantes

Let’s hope the institution of marriage survives its detractors, for without it there would be no more adultery and without adultery two thirds of our novelists would stand in line for unemployment checks. – Peter S. Prescott

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. – Jules Renard, “Diary,” February 1895