“Write about what you're afraid of.”

“The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing it well or you're doing it poorly, it looks the exact same. That is actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.”

John Green (1977) American author and vlogger

“Writing about the unholy is one way of writing about what is sacred.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

“If you write a lot of programs, and you're used to squeezing them all the time, you find that it's easy to write a program that's simple. A lot of it is having a clear sense of what you want to say — writing the proof by choosing what to prove, and being clear about that. In programming, a lot of simplicity comes from knowing what matters and what doesn't matter.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining... researching... talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

“Write about what you don't know about what you know.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

“Most of the things I write are things that are personal to me. I realized that that's the only way to really be honest. If you go writing about someone else you're just guessing at it.”

Billy Joe Shaver (1939) American singer-songwriter

“Now you're just being silly. He's a mercenary- he's not going to go about penning love letters, and really, what would he write? 'Anna… love you… grrr?'" Olivia to Annalia”

Kresley Cole American writer

“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist