All that work for nothing

 I suppose authors generally have a special affection for those of their books which come out easily. It is not that we mind work - we are always ready to give our all for our Art - but it is nice when we are occasionally spared the blood, sweat, and tears, and there are few things more agonizing than the realization, afer one has written 50,000 words of a novel, that as a theatrical manager I knew used to say of a play which seemed to him to fall short of perfection, "It don't add up right."

(from the Preface to The Small Bachelor, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)