The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more.
The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.
Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.
An editor becomes kind of your mother. You expect love and encouragement from an editor.
I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.
The only kind of writing is rewriting.
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.
Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.
Every writer I know has trouble writing.
You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.
The best advice I can give on this is, once it's done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes.
You can fix anything but a blank page.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
The only thing I regret is that I didn't do more than I did.
Editing is the same as quarrelling with writers - same thing exactly.
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.
There is no great writing, only great rewriting.