Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.

A writer should always feel like he's in over his head

. . . no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. . . . no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure: that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying to follow it; besides that he will always give to the inferior portions of his work only such inferior attention as they require; and according to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude or anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied also. I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge this necessity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a picture and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way.

The best work is the work you are excited about.

The best writing is rewriting.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.

Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.

A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

Some of the best writings of writers, it seems to us, were done before they actually thought of themselves as engaged in producing literature. Some of the best humor of humorists was produced before ever they heard the distant laughter of their multitudes.