A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, and two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

William Faulkner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton

Take rest, a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.

Ovid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid

It’s a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own making.

Gustav Flaubert

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Flaubert

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo

My Job

Since keeping house and raising kids

don’t count as jobs, I only ever had one.

I started out as a prentice

at five years old, and at near eighty-five

in most ways I am still one,

being a slow learner. And the work

is quite demanding.

The boss who drives the shiny yellow car

and those nine sisters up there by the spring

are tough, but fair. There’s times

you can’t get them to listen,

but they’ve always got their eyes on you.

They don’t let botched work pass.

Sometimes the pay is terrible.

Sometimes it’s only fairy gold.

Then again sometimes the wages

are beyond imagination and desire.

I am glad to have worked for this company.

Ursula K. Le Guin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin

The writer must never attempt to impose himself upon his subject. He must not try to mold it according to what he believes his readers or editors want to read. His initial task is to come to know his subject intimately, to understand its every aspect, to let it fill his mind. Then at some turning point, the subject takes command and the true and the true act of creation begins….The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him.

Rachel Carson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson#

One of my theories about short stories is that their titles and first lines ought to be memorable because if not memorable they will not be remembered, and if not remembered the stories will not be reprinted (because no one can find them).

Damon Knight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Knight

The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

John Steinbeck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck

Unfortunately, many young writers are more concerned with fame that their own work….It’s much more important to write than to be written about.

Gabriel García Márquez

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquz