There is something in too much verbal felicity that can betray the writer into technique for the sake of technique.

Edward Abbey

Every novelist ought to invent his own technique.

François Mauriac

“I DO NOT THINK you can write a good short story without having a good story in you,” Whit Burnett used to tell his class at Columbia University. “I would rather you had something to say with no technique, than have technique with nothing to say.”

Hallie Burnett

The only principle of technique I’m aware of is faith. Faith to the language and faith to the situation to which that language points.

Charles Simic

The moment a man begins to talk about technique, that’s proof he is fresh out of ideas.

Raymond Chandler

If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.

Marianne Moore

The best technique is none at all.

Henry Miller

Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor over little cameo works in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.

Joyce Carol Oates

TOLSTOY TO RILKE, who was pestering him about techniques in writing: “If you want to write, write!”

Edward Abbey

When learning to play any instrument well, to wrestle, lift weights, dance, sing, write, it is wise to exercise. Try describing a hat in such a way the reader will realize its wearer has just had her dog run over. Practice putting your life into the present tense where you presumably lived it. Do dialogue—let’s say—between a hobo and a high-class hooker, then between an ambulance chaser and a guy who sells scorecards at the ballpark—let’s say—about the meaning of money. Between pints, get the arch of the dart down pat. Shoot foul shots day in and rim out. Pick a sentence at random from a randomly selected book, and another from another volume also chosen by chance; then write a paragraph which will be a reasonable bridge between them. And it does get easier to do what you have done, sing what you’ve so often sung; it gets so easy, sometimes, that what was once a challenge passes over into thoughtless routine. So the bar must be raised a few notches, one’s handicap increased, the stakes trebled, tie both hands behind your back. Refuse the blindfold, refuse the final cigarette, refuse the proffered pizza. Do dialogue in dialect: a Welshman and a Scot arguing about an onion. Hardest of all: start over.

William H. Gass

Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder.

Raymond Chandler