I don’t try and write strong female characters or strong male characters. I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes they happen to be female. - JJ Abrams

I write a lot of material that I know I’ll throw away…. I have to write hundreds of pages before I get to page one. - Barbara Kingsolver

You do an awful lot of bad writing in order to do any good writing. Incredibly bad. I think it would be very interesting to make a collection of some of the worst writing by good writers. - William S Burroughs

It is not the task of the writer to 'tell all', or even decide what to leave in, but to decide what to leave out. - Caitlin R. Kiernan

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself. - Michel de Montaigne

I write, “Jane came into the room and sat down on the blue couch,” read that, wince, cross out “came into the room” and “down” and “blue” (Why does she have to come into the room? Can someone sit UP on a couch? Why do we care if it’s blue?) and the sentence becomes “Jane sat on the couch – ” and suddenly, it’s better. - George Saunders

Through an arbitrary problem, I had arrived at a tenet of good writing: brevity wins. - Michael Winter

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. - Thomas Jefferson

Making sure that the geography and timelines work is always the hardest part of writing. But you owe it to the readers to get it right. - Michael Scott

Good writing can be defined as having something to say and saying it well. - Edward Abbey