"Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch once said, 'Murder your darlings,' and he was right."

- Stephen King in On Writing

"Talk, whether ugly or beautiful, is an index of character; it can also be a breath of cool, refreshing air in a room some people would prefer to keep shut up. In the end, the important question has nothing to do with whether the talk in your story is sacred or profane; the only question is how it rings on the page and in the ear. If you expect it to ring true, then you must talk yourself. Even more important, you must shut up and listen to others talk."

Stephen King on the relationship between isolating yourself and bad dialogue (from On Writing)

"When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story," he said. "When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story."

John Gould as quoted by Stephen King in On Writing