I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in human beings. - Pearl S. Buck

If you start to revise before you've reached the end, you're likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing.

For the truly creative mind in any field is no more than this — a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create — to create — to create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of beauty and meaning his very breath is cut off from him. He must create. He must pour out creation. By some strange unknown pressing inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

The days of my youth are past and to a woman full grown a kiss means everything — or nothing.