"I revise a lot my work and read out loud, and often say: “It doesn’t work”; “It’s so boring!” I often realize that I could say something more clearly, more simply, and get rid of many qualifications. I believe that you do not really have a clear thought until you have the right word. The thought is developed in the act of writing: sometimes you are writing a sentence, and you realize that, deep down, you do not really know what you want to say. You revise, and at a certain point you say: “This is really what I think, what I want to say!”"
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_W._O'Malley