“Write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you are writing, and aren't writing particularly well.”

“There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well.”

“I mean, what can you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you've got to think of something, and then when you've thought of it you've got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That's all." ~ Mrs. Oliver”

“She was a lucky woman who had established a happy knack of writing what quite a lot of people wanted to read.”

“First, you have to think and think and think and think; then you have to force yourself to write it down.”

“You start into it, inflamed by an idea, full of hope, full indeed of confidence. If you are properly modest, you will never write it at all, so there has to be one delicious moment when you have thought of something, know just how you are going to write it, rush for a pencil, and start buoyed up with exaltation. You then get into difficulties, don’t see your way out, and finally manage to accomplish more or less what you first meant to accomplish, though losing confidence all the time. Having finished it, you know it is absolutely rotten. A couple of months later, you wonder if it may not be all right after all.”

“I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties.”