“ Imagine a school with children that can read or write, but teachers who cannot, and you have a metaphor of the Information Age in which we live. ” -Peter Cochrane

"Ideas are the cheapest part of the writing. They are free. The hard part is what you do with ideas you've gathered.” ~ Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon & Sleeping Ugly

“ I write to correct life’s unfairness.” ~Verandah Porche

"Once I have the idea for a story. I start collecting all kinds of helpful information and storing it in three-ring notebooks. For example, I may see a picture of a man in a magazine and say, 'That's exactly what the father in my book looks like!” ~ Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, author of Shiloh

“ Good writing is rewriting.” -Truman Capote

"If you do all that work of figuring out exactly how writing is done, then it's available to you at anytime, and you can build on it. It's like the difference between shooting one hoop and having it go in by accident and saying later, 'I shot a basket,'--and practicing so much you can do it whenever you want.” ~ Mark Salzman, author of Iron and Silk & The Laughing Sutra

“ A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.” ~Karl Kraus

"Eventually you won't be thinking about style very much at all. Style will be a word that other people use to describe words that have come to you, and words you have spent time seeking to make your characters live their visible and invisible lives.” ~ John Casey, author of Spartina & An American Romance

“ The Six Golden Rules of Writing: read, read, read, and write, write write.” -Ernest Gaines

“ The key is to teach ourselves to think, and the writing will take care of itself.” -Christopher Mobley

"The writing for me is hard work and I always look forward to drawing the pictures.” ~ Marc Brown, author of the Arthur books

“ By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.” -Quintilian

“ The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into new land.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"...figurative language adds pizzazz. It raises work above the plain, the dull, the ordinary.” ~ Ellen Hunnicutt, author of Suite for Calliope

“ Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.” ~Orson Scott Card

"Published writers still struggle with the writing process.” ~ Laurence Pringle, author of Dinosaurs: Strange and Wonderful

“ Writing is like a bird-watcher watching for birds: The stories are there: you just have to train yourself to look for them.” ~ Barbara Micheals, author of The Wizard's Daughter

“ If one corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” -George Orwell

"When I'm looking for an idea, I'll do anything-- clean the closet, mow the lawn, work in the garden.” ~Kevin Henkes, author of Chrysanthemum

“ The pen is the tongue of the mind.” -Miguel de Cervantes

"I think writer's block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible. But, as a writer, you have to believe in the words.” ~ Roy Blount, Jr., author of Crackers and One Fell Soup

“ Memory believes before knowing remembers.” ~William Faulkner

"Work extra hard on the beginning of your story, so it snares readers instantly. And know how you're going to end your story before you start writing; without a sense of direction, you can get lost in the middle.” ~ Joan Lowery Nixon, The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore & The Other Side of Dark

“ The only time I know that something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of writing.” -Jean Malaquais

"I think what's really hard is making sense and making what you write clear and smooth-flowing.” ~ Roy Blount, Jr., author of Crackers & One Fell Soup

“ We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” -Anais Nin

"Try drawing or painting a scene you're working on. Often this will help free up you imagination.” ~ Kevin Henkes, author of Chrysanthemum

“ Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing anything else.” ~Gloria Steinem

"The golden rule of writing is to write what you care about. If you care about your topic, you'll do your best writing, and then you stand the best chance of really touching a reader in some way.” ~ Jerry Spinelli, author of Maniac Magee & Fourth Grade Rats

“ Writing is thinking on paper.” -William Zinsser

"I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words--then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.” ~ Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist & author of Turning Points

“ Time to a writer is like play dough in the hands of a toddler.” ~Barry Lane

“ I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” ~ James Michener

“ If you think of the Internet as a place to “look up stuff” you’re missing the best part.”

“ If there is a book you really want to read but you can’t find it, sit down and write it.” ~Toni Morrison

"I'm a rewriter. That's the part I like best...once I have a pile of paper to work with, it's like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture.” ~ Judy Blume, author of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing & Fudgemania

“ When I write, ideas w ander around in my mind looking for something to do.” ~S.E. Hinton

"Try not to become disappointed if someone doesn't like a story you've written. Stick up for your ideas, but listen to what other people say, too. They might have good advice.” ~ Margaret Mahy, author of Nonstop Nonsense & Fortunate Family Gang

“ Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them.” ~ Barbara Harrell Carson

"As a writer, you're obligated to draw readers into your world, and if your writing isn't interesting to them, you won't succeed.” ~ Donald Perry, author of Life Above the Jungle Floor

On writing…. “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” ~Elmore Leonard

"There must be something to think about at the end.” ~ Chris Van Allsburg, author of The Wretched Stone & The Wreck of the Zephyr

“ Merely looking at a stranger’s Twitter or Facebook feed isn’t interesting,because it seems like blather. Follow it for a day, though, and it begins to feel like a short story; follow it for a month, and it’s a novel.” ~ NY Times 9-7-09

"Write, write, & write some more. Think of writing as a muscle that needs lots of exercise.” ~ Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon & Sleeping Ugly

“ Easy reading is damn hard writing.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

“ Inch by inch, the words surprised me.” ~W. Kennedy

"The only way to do it is to do it: by writing, writing, writing.” ~ Barbara Michaels, author of Ammie, Come Home & The Wizard's Daughter

“ To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music the words make.” ~Truman Capote, 1967

"I enjoy writing and it is hard. It’s hard for everyone to write well. I have to rewrite over and over again so that on average it takes me a year to write a book.” ~ Avi, author of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle & Nothing But the Truth

“ Every writer I know has trouble writing.” ~Joseph Heller

"Some of the best writing comes when you rehash. It's in the retelling of stories that the improvement comes. The reflection comes in the polish. What a person will see, what a person will feel, comes in the polish. When you finish polishing your writing, it forms the image you're trying to create.” ~ Donald Perry, free lance writer and author of Above the Jungle Floor

“ A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.” ~Baltasar Gracian

"Revision is very important to me. I have to revise, cut, shape. Sometimes I throw the whole thing away and start from scratch.” ~ William Kennedy, author of Ironweed & Very Old Bones

“ I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” ~James Michener

“ The first draft is a skeleton-- just bare bones. It's like the very first rehearsal of a play, where the director moves the actors around mechanically to get a feel of the action.” ~ Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, author of Shiloh

“ Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~Anton Chekhov

"Push yourself to try new things-- it will make you a better writer.” ~ Deborah Nourse Lattimore, author of The Dragon's Robe & The Winged Cat

“ Putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought making us think more deeply even if our writing is thrown away.” ~Norbet Platt

"Revision plays a very large role in writing. Sometimes it seems to be all revision. And the longer I write, the more I revise-- until it is completely right.” ~ Ellen Hunnicutt, author of Suite for Calliope

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

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

“ You write to communicate what’s burning inside you. You edit to let the fire show through the smoke.” ~Author Unknown

"The concrete is better than the abstract. The detail is better than the commonplace. The sensual [through the senses] is better than the intellectual. The visual is better than the mental.” ~ Ellen Hunnicutt, author of Suite for Calliope

“ You're never going to be a writer unless you write. You have to sit down & write.” ~ Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon & Sleeping Ugly