What's the best writing advice you've ever heard/read?

There's two I remember. Flaubert told me to avoid assonance, Orwell told me to never use a long word when a short word will do.

Sadly, I always believe in using long words when I write.

"Don't get it right, just get it written." - James Thurber

Billy Wilder “If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act”

There are really only like 6 stories that exist. All scripts are using these stories principal plots and sub-plots. Each of these elements have their own dramatic arch and conclusion. The sub-plots keep the principal plot from being flat, things that go on in the characters lives, that go on in all people’s lives that give depth to them… I think the lack of understanding this is why Scorsese disqualified movies that depend on effects - at expense of story - from being considered Cinema…

I write poems since i was a teenager. A former girlfriend told me that i am overthinking. That it shouldn't always "makes sense", she told me to write even meaningless things, to let my subconscious "take control" or something like that. Her advice changed everything.

Im not a writer, I tried and found out it was not in my talent set. Ok, I’ve got other outlets. But I was listening to NPR and a successful writer said ‘Write one page a day. At the end of a year you have a novel. Writers that write one novel a year are prolific.’

Kurosawa was one of the greatest filmmakers ever

Automatic writing. Later improvisation. If you have a critical mind you might tigthen up, and you have to be able to compartmentalize the critical, and risk cringe.

You get better at writing by writing.