Energy and Imagination

"Writing great fiction involves some combination  of energy and imagination that cannot be energized or realized forever. Strong talents can simply exhaust their gift, and they do."
Larry McMurtry, Books: A Memoir

Briefer is Better

"One of the saddest lessons any writer has to learn is that anything he writes can be cut and that, worse news, the writing is often —not always but more often than not— better for being briefer."
Joseph Epstein, In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage

Books are Forever

"I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can't divorce a book."
Gloria Swanson, Write the Story of Your Life