Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

Write as if your parents are dead.

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.

اكتبي لي قبل أن أموت, فبعدها سيكون الأمر سيان تماماً بالنسبه لي وسأدعك وشأنك

I had got this far, and was thinking of what to say next, and as my habit is, I was pricking the paper idly with my pen. And I thought how, between one dip of the pen and the next, time goes on, and I hurry, drive myself, and speed toward death. We are always dying. I while I write, you while you read, and others while they listen or stop their ears, they are all dying.

Speak to your dead. Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest or louder or more loving, whatever it is, but ask them in, listen, and then write. And when war comes — and make no mistake, it is already here — be sure you write for the living too. The ones you love, and the ones who are coming for your life. What will you give them when they get there?

Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.

live as if you were to die tommorow.
dream as if you were to live forever

You are not writing properly unless someone is bleeding, probably you.

The author enters into his own death, writing begins.

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you

I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man.

The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.