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. Editorsneverbuy 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.
