Each month, I put a quotation about writing in my monthly e-newsletter, Factorial. I hope you find them both entertaining and inspiring.

The fool tells me his reasons; the wise man persuades me with my own.
     Aristotle

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
      Lauren Bacall

The most ordinary word when put into the right place, suddenly acquires brilliance. This is the brilliance with which your images must shine.
      Robert Bresson, French film maker

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.
     Albert Camus

The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.
      Robert Cormier, writer

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.
      English Professor, Ohio University

The desire to write grows with writing.
      Erasmus

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your head.
      Gene Fowler

Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meager.
     F. Scott Fitzgerald

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
      Robert Frost

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
      Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ernest Hemingway, when asked what was the most frightening thing he ever encountered, answered: 'A blank sheet of paper'.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
      Lexicographer and writer Samuel Johnson

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
      Stephen King, On Writing

I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
      Elmore Leonard

You're there to be shot at, and that's part of it.
      Attributed to Norman Mailer, novelist

There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
      H.L. Mencken, American writer and editor

My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.
     A.A. Milne

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.
      James Michener

If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.
     Wilson Mizner, US screenwriter

It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit to say 'in my opinion, it is not an unjustifiable assumption that' than to say 'I think'.
     George Orwell

I hate writing; I love having written.
     Dorothy Parker

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.
     Enrique Jardiel Poncela

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.
      Edwin Schlossberg, writer and designer.

The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. 
     Isaac Bashevis Singer

If you would be pungent, be brief: for it is with words as well as sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
     Robert Southey, English poet

Vigorous writing is concise.
      William Strunk

First, say it straight. Then say it great.
      Luke Sullivan, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style.
      Jonathan Swift

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
      Mark Twain

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
      Mark Twain

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.
     Mark Twain

Love truth, but pardon error.
      Voltaire

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
     Voltaire

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone’s draft.
      H.G. Wells

I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.
      H.G. Wells

Be obscure clearly.
     E.B. White

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
     P.J. O'Rourke

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
      Oscar Wilde

Language is perhaps the greatest of all human inventions. Most people think of it merely as the chief means of communication, but it is much more than that: it is the chief medium of thought.
     Granville Williams

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
      William Butler Yeat

Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. 
From the movie Finding Forrester