To the classic writer, the difference between thinking and writing is as wide as the difference between cooking and serving. In every great restaurant there is a kitchen, where the work is done, and a dining room, where the result is presented. The dining room is serene, and the presentation suggests that perfection is routine and effortless, no matter how hectic things get in the kitchen. Naturally the kitchen and the dining room are in constant and intimate contact, but it is part of the protocol of a great restaurant to treat them as if they existed on different planets.

Francis-Noël Thomas & Mark Turner, Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, Princeton, 1994, pp. 64-65