You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

~ Jack London

Books are the liberated spirits of men.

Mark Twain

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Mark Twain

A man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.

-Mark Twain

"Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."

-Barbara Kingsolver

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any."

-Orson Scott Card

"My students often told me they didn't have anything to say. They were silent. Empty. They felt anxiety. Panic. Terror. 'Good' I'd answer. 'You are a writer. You are at the place from which writing comes.'"

~Donald Murray in Shoptalk