Beating a dead horse Quote by Ntozake Shange

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley,…

— Jack Kerouac

I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel,…

— David Mitchell

I think too many obituaries have been written about me.

— Smriti Irani

“A writer writes. There are no exceptions to this reality. No excuses. Stop wasting time talking about your stories and get them on paper.”

— Christy Hall

Every writing teacher I ever had except for one told me I was an awful writer, had no idea what I was doing, and…

— Catherynne M. Valente

Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with…

— Tom Rachman

“You are a writer when your overwhelming need to tell a story outweighs your fear of ridicule.”

— Julie Rodelli

“It is a misfortune to be in the presence of a writer, even a failed writer, to be seen by him, be his passing…

— Manu Joseph

“Some people get offended with what I write. In their own little pathetic world, they truly believe I should apologize for being a writer.”

— Daniel Marques

I considered that I had to write stories about the people I had met, with whom I'd worked, the history of my books -…

— Anatoly Rybakov

“A writer who does not write is a deplorable thing, like an emaciated dog lost from home.”

— Wesley D. Gray

“Dear lady, ... dear gentleman, reader, [it's] not right ... to put down this writer on his writing ... And I'll tell you why,…

— William Saroyan