This & That

Which author based one (or perhaps two, depending on your perspective) of his most famous characters on the fascinating case of William Brodie, respected Edinburgh businessman by day, leader of a gang of thieves by night?  Robert Louis Stevenson  Arthur Conan Doyle  Daniel Dafoe  James Fenimore Cooper

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

- John Campbell

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

- Orson Scott Card

It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly.

- C. J. Cherryh

Next to doing things that deserve to be written, nothing gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure than to write things that deserve to be read.

- Lord Chesterfield

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

- Colette