The writer’s life is rife with rejection. Get used to it.

If you’re telling yourself that it’s OK to be writing something bad because you can always come back and fix it later, it takes a lot of the pressure off.” — Marissa Meyer

“Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.”

Writing is the ultimate ‘deep work’ activity — to become a better writer, you need to practice your skills in a state of distraction-free concentration.

Writing is boring. It’s unnatural. It’s basically sitting and staring at a screen and typing into a keyboard.

“Powerful people,” he writes, “impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.” I think of this law when I am about to tweet, when I am considering an email, when I am coming up with marketing materials. Less is almost always more.

One evening, you are going to wake up in a cold sweat of memory, and you are going to have no other choice but to bleed. You are going to have no other choice but to pick up the pen.

We can easily find ourselves in the clutches of the dreaded Writer’s Block (I capitalized it because it looks scarier that way) but I’ve found there are at least a few ways you can shake it off and find yourself even better off than before.

“Don’t say, ‘I want to be a writer.’ Instead say, ‘I am a writer.’”

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Writing is magic”