You need to realize that most writing rules aren't laws, they're rules of thumb.

It's easier to write about heartbreak after you've had your heart broken. You have more material to draw from, you can extrapolate from your own experiences and make reasonable assumptions about how your characters would feel and act.

Caffeine helps a lot. That and a certain amount of isolation.

I take back everything I ever said about that boy being clever." He turned around to face the bar while leveling an accusatory finger at the closed door. "That," he said firmly to the room in general, "is what comes of working with iron every day.

Auri took it, and peered inside the small leather sack. “Why this is lovely, Kvothe. What lives in the salt?” Trace minerals, I thought. Chromium, bassal, malium, iodine . . . everything your body needs but probably can’t get from apples and bread and whatever you manage to scrounge up when I can’t find you. “The dreams of fish,” I said. “And sailor’s songs.

You want to publish with a publisher because a publisher knows how to publish a book. And you don't. You really don't.

Only a fool worries over what he can’t control.