It’s hard to take someone seriously when they leave a note saying ‘your ugly.’ My ugly what? The idiot didn’t even know the difference between your and you’re. - Cara Lynn Shultz

Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want. - Doris Lessing

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, ‘How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?’ and avoid ‘How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?’ - James Thurber

Editors have to be vicious. They’re working for the reader, not the writer. - Brendan Wolfe

When you close the book, does the story end? No! That's such a bland way to read. Every story goes on forever in our imaginations, and its characters live on. - Mizuki Nomura

I tend to relate to a character in terms of the arc: what’s interesting is where he starts versus where he ends up. - Edward Norton

Act 3 is the whole book in miniature. There’s a beginning, middle, and end. Rising action, climax, and falling action. - Jeff Gerke

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller

When you are in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else. - Margaret Atwood

Never let up. In stories, things go from bad to worse, even if nobody wants them to. If she wants to apologize, interrupt her. Whenever anyone is about to release tension, interrupt her. Is the couple on the date about to kiss? Pull them apart. You might think the audience will love you if you give them what they want. Not true. Make them want it, then yank it away. - Matt Bird

Writing a story isn’t about making your peaceful fantasies come true. The whole point of the story is the character arc. You didn’t think joy could change a person, did you? Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over. But it’s conflict that changes a person…. You put your characters through hell. You put them through hell. That’s the only way we change. - Donald Miller

A mystery is solved with a story. The story starts with a clue, but the trouble is that you usually have no idea what the clue is, even if you think you know. - Lemony Snicket

Once I came to really understand the mechanics of three-act structure, my life got a great deal easier. It doesn’t tell you how to write your book, but it helps you understand why things aren’t working, or what kind of beat needs to come next. - Marcus Sakey

The Ring passed to Isildur, who had this one chance to destroy evil forever, but the hearts of men are easily corrupted. And the ring of power has a will of its own. It betrayed Isildur, to his death. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, the ring ensnared a new bearer. - Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings

Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions - the hero and the sidekick. - Laurence Shames

Pintel: How'd this go all screwy?Ragetti: Well, each wants the chest for hisself, don't 'e? Mr. Norrington, I think, is trying to regain a bit of honor. Old Jack's looking to trade it, save his own skin. And Turner there, I think 'e's trying to settle some unresolved business twixt him and his twice-cursed pirate father.Pintel: Sad.- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest