Walter Prichard Eaton: It is easier to write in the first, because the process of thinking "I" identifies you with the character. Also, it is more dangerous, because the same process identifies the character with you. (This is really quite wise and intelligent.)
E. O. Foster: I prefer writing in the third person so as to have as little of my own personality enter into the story as is possible.
Arthur O. Friel: No preference. Depends on the story. Some are told more naturally in first person; others in third.
J. P. Giesy: The first, I think, since in it I may, as it were, vicariously live the part exactly as the actor lives his part for the time being and consequently enter very nearly into the thing. However, I very frequently choose the third because of the very nature of the subject in hand.
George Gilbert: Some stories can only be told in the first; some only in the third person. The story itself decides the person, not the author. If the story is one that can only be told best by one person's having knowledge of all the incidents, the first person becomes permissible, not mandatory. If the story is such that no one person could have had knowledge of all the details without recourse to the receipt of letters, telephone calls, confidences given in such a way as to interrupt the thread of the tale, the story calls for other treatment than first-person telling. The limitation on the first-person story, when the narrator is the hero, is this: It is plain that the narrator lived to tell the story, so no matter what peril he gets into during the tale, the reader must know he survived, unless it is a tale of a manuscript found buried or in family archives, etc. The first-person-narrator story is most effective when the narrator is not the hero, yet some fine tales have been written that violate this rule of mine. In any event, the author must look into his story at the beginning and decide this point. Another author might have an entirely different idea on it, and succeed at a given tale where I would fail using my rule.
Kenneth Gilbert: While writing in the first person is the easiest way to tell a story, I prefer the third for the freedom of description it permits. Many stories, however, would fall flat if not written in the first person.
Holworthy Hall: Third person. Generally more convincing and less conceited.
Richard Matthews Hallet: I have written both ways. The first person makes an easier narrative, but makes it harder to develop a plot. And I find, curiously, by asking the question a great many times and from being criticized myself, that there is among a great body of readers an odd aversion to a story in the first person. I've never heard even the semblance of a reason for it, but no matter, it exists and will certainly work against the popularity of a story in the first person. There is also a considerable group of persons who profess unwillingness to read a story with the faintest touch of dialect in it; in spite of this dialect stories thrive. So do some stories written in the first person.
William H. Hamby: Really prefer writing in the first person, but rarely do.
A. Judson Hanna: This is a matter governed by circumstances. By far the majority of my published stories have been written in the first person. As a rule, I prefer to write them so because it allows so much freedom of expression and creates an informality between writer and reader that appeals to the reader. It is the personal touch.