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Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.

— Arthur Quiller-Couch

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Notes from Wikiquote

Often misattributed, e.g. to Hemingway, Faulkner, and others, or shortened to 'Kill your darlings.' source

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Writing

More quotes by Arthur Quiller-Couch

All the old statues of Victory have wings: but Grief has no wings. She is the unwelcome lodger that squats on the hearthstone between us and the fire and will not move or be dislodged.

O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm
Of green days telling with a quiet beat.

Not as we wanted it,
But as God granted it.

Only the heel
Of splendid steel
Shall stand secure on sliding fate,
When golden navies weep their freight.

O, that I were where I would be,
Then would I be where I am not;
For where I am I would not be,
And where I would be I can not.

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Arthur Quiller-Couch (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.