“There is no such thing as great writing - there is only great re-writing!”

“This is what I believe to be the progress of a writer. You write 10 things, of which one of them will be great. You then write 11 things, of which two of them will be great. Then you write 12 things, of which four of them will be great. Then you write 13 things, of which eight of them will be great. Finally you write 14 things, of which 16 of those 14 things will be great. 
”

“Only God writes great non-fiction.”

“Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.”

“Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.”

“I spent years in a graduate literature program learning what makes great writing, and the only conclusion we came to was that the future of graduate literature programs was safe because nobody is ever going to agree on what makes great writing.”