Bits Quote by Donald Ray Pollock

Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of…

— Carl Hiaasen

When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't get that…

— Toni Morrison

As a writer, you look for someplace to start. Once you have a beginning and you've written the first two sentences, nothing else will…

— Ronee Blakley

When people start writing there is this idea that you have to get everything right first time, every sentence has to be perfect, every…

— Irvine Welsh

Pretty much every issue that we've put out, there have been at least one or two things that really surprised me. It sounds like…

— Lorin Stein

All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don't keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the…

— William Zinsser

One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it,…

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez

There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.

— Beatrix Potter

If you are careful about the content and writing style, readers will not feel that you are in a hurry.

— Ravi Subramanian

I'm not a fast reader. I like to linger over each sentence, enjoying the style. If I don't enjoy the writing, I stop.

— Haruki Murakami

You really burden the reader if you put things in but, "Oh, it's not interesting, but I'll put it in anyway." Then the reader's…

— David Sedaris

Sometimes people won't even finish a piece that you wrote, because they've already decided what it is that you want to say, and generally…

— Louis Menand