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
I really would like to stop working forever—never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now—and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends…. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence. – Allen Ginsberg