the why in writing
Talking or writing about the things you're interested in is a good way to generate new ideas. When you try to put ideas into words, a missing idea creates a sort of vacuum that draws it out of you. Indeed, there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing.
Paul Graham • How to Do Great Work
The primary task of a writer is to write well. (And to go on writing well. Neither to burn out nor to sell out.) ... Let the dedicated activist never overshadow the dedicated servant of literature — the matchless storyteller.
Maria Popova • Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers
A writer’s greatest responsibility is to his readers, to keep providing them with the best work that he is capable of turning out.
Haruki Murakami • Novelist as a Vocation
Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about [italics mine]. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.
Kurt Vonnegut • Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style
People don't want you to be perfect. What they want is to feel connected with you.
Joe Hudson • Tweet
“It doesn’t matter if it’s good right now, it just needs to exist.”