Read, read read. Read everything.

The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

— Ernest Hemingway

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

— George Orwell

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

— William Faulkner

Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.

— Philip K. Dick

Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

— Harper Lee

All the information you need can be given in dialogue.

— Elmore Leonard

You have to write the book that wants to be written,

— Madeleine L'Engle

Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

— Ernest Hemingway

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.

— William Zinsser

I don't like to use writing assignments, exercises. I think too often people get comfortable writing in that vein, but you can't go on…

— Chang-Rae Lee

Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a…

— V. S. Pritchett

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

— Larry Niven

“For my books, I do everything short of writing my own reviews. Those I do tall.”

— Jarod Kintz