Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just g... - Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects."

"You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you."

"I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh."

"If you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television's electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea."

"you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."