No matter how intense or honest or pure our desire to become a writer it ultimately comes down to having talent, developing your particular level of talent, or giving up. And it doesn't matter what the public is reading, what Oprah is recommending, or how you feel. If you are a writer you'll start writing that book and you'll finish it. Then whether it sells or not--whether it's published or not--you'll finish another. And another. And another. If you don't you're not a writer. This isn't a particularly comfortable or encouraging proposition and the fact that it might result in a lifetime of toil that ends in debt and obscurity doesn't, however unfair, make it any less true. When I seriously considered quitting writing I realized the crater left behind could never be filled with familial bliss, money, Irish whiskey, or vacations. In the end it doesn't matter if my books are bestsellers or any-kind-of-sellers; it only matters that they be written. Anything less would be a waste of my life. God help me, I'm a writer. And, God help me again, reading little nuggets of wisdom from other writers are sometimes the only thing that gets me to scribble another word, sentence, or paragraph. Pathetic, but here are 906 of my favorites.