Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions..

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components..

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough..

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless….

Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there..

To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive..

Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining wh….

Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. A….

Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what….

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in mom….

If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for..

Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don….

One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material..

Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse….

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity..

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading..

Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it..

Writing is thinking on paper..

Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose..

If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart..

All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it..