What is written can be erased, alas.

Writing is prayer.

The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it. — Omar Khayyam
...

Nor will I: ever write a word that fades in light, this I must be certain; else lay desolate at bight. <3

Writing is a holy chore.

Often must you turn your pencil to erase, if you hope to write something worth a second reading.

As it seems to me, skill of the writer in abilities not only to write, but will delete everything that is unessential.

Only the hand that erases
can write the true thing.

One writes not to be read but to breathe...one writes to think, to pray, to analyze. One writes to clear one's mind, to dissipate one's fears, to face one's doubts, to look at one's mistakes — in order to retrieve them. One writes to capture and crystallize one's joy, but also to disperse one's gloom. Like prayer — you go to it in sorrow more than joy, for help, a road back to 'grace'.

To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

Yes, everything's been written, but also, the thing you want to write, before you wrote it, was impossible to write. Otherwise it would already exist. Your writing makes it possible.

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

To write is to forget. Literature is the pleasantest way of ignoring life.

All writing comes by the grace of God.

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.