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

Less is more.

Writing is thinking on paper.

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

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

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

When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.

Thought is action in rehearsal.

A clear sentence is no accident.

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

God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.

Only when you accept that one day you'll die can you let go, and make the best out of life. And that's the big secret. That's the miracle.

There is no tragedy in missing a putt, no matter how short. All have erred in this respect.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being.

There was a nuisance in the service known as the army correspondent.

If you're going to have a male dominant system, to maintain the system, you have to teach men to dominate.

Philip Roth is a good writer, but I wouldn't want to shake hands with him.

Truth only needs to be for once spoken out; and there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, as makes men's memories her joyous slaves.

The jack-of-all-trades seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim.