Let's face it, writing is hell.

I get a fine, warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell.

William Styron (June 11, 1925–November 1, 2006). Interviewed in The Paris Review. (Spring 1954,
No. 5).

Styron wrote The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie's Choice (1979, among other things.

Zach Zamboni On Food, Cultures, and Travel

In years of travel, I’ve realized you can judge a culture by how much they want to feed you. Some people couldn’t care less if you eat, other people literally refuse to continue a scene unless everyone stops and eats something. A chef’s ego wants things to taste good, their heart wants to feed you. A cinematographer’s ego wants to make things beautiful, their heart just wants to tell the truth. Zach Zamboni,  cinematographer and Mainer. 

"You're an Idiot and Shouldn't Be Allowed Near a Keyboard"

This is a cartoon from 1996.

It used to be next to my desk:

I don't think I'd ever say this to a user, but there are users who suck up more time, money and resources in tech support than they will ever contribute to a community or a company or a university.

Chaucer on Sleep

“Rather then that I shulde deye
Through defaute of sleping thus,
I wolde yive thilke Morpheus,
Or his goddesse, dame Juno,
Or som wight elles, I ne roghte who—
To make me slepe and have som rest—
I wil yive him the alderbest
Yift that ever he abood his lyve,
And here on warde, right now, as blyve;
If he wol make me slepe a lyte,
Of downe of pure dowves whyte
I wil yive him a fether-bed,
Rayed with golde, and right wel cled
In fyn blak satin doutremere,
And many a pilow, and every bere
Of clothe of Reynes, to slepe softe;
Him thar not nede to turnen ofte.
And I wol yive him al that falles
To a chambre; and al his halles
I wol do peynte with pure golde,
And tapite hem ful many folde
Of oo sute; this shal he have,
Yf I wiste wher were his cave,
If he can make me slepe sone,
As did the goddesse Alcione (Chaucer The Boke of the Duchess. ll. 240–256)."

On Book Reviewing

[I now] suggest some hard-won guidelines for responsible reviewing. For instance: First, as in Hippocrates, do no harm. Second, never stoop to score a point or bite an ankle. Third, always understand that in this symbiosis, you are the parasite. Fourth, look with an open heart and mind at every different kind of book with every change of emotional weather because we are reading for our lives and that could be love gone out the window or a horseman on the roof. Fifth, use theory only as a periscope or a trampoline, never a panopticon, a crib sheet, or a license to kill. Sixth, let a hundred Harolds Bloom.

The New York Review of Science Fiction. "Editorial 192." David Hartwell. January, 2008.

On The Reviewing Of Books

[I now] suggest some hard-won guidelines for responsible reviewing. For instance: First, as in Hippocrates, do no harm. Second, never stoop to score a point or bite an ankle. Third, always understand that in this symbiosis, you are the parasite. Fourth, look with an open heart and mind at every different kind of book with every change of emotional weather because we are reading for our lives and that could be love gone out the window or a horseman on the roof. Fifth, use theory only as a periscope or a trampoline, never a panopticon, a crib sheet, or a license to kill. Sixth, let a hundred Harolds Bloom.

John Leonard in The New York Times, quoted in The New York Review of Science Fiction. “Editorial 192.” David Hartwell. January, 2008.

Octavia Butler on Writing

You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.

—Octavia E. Butler