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.
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?
Kurt Vonnegut
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool!” said my muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.
Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella
Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.