Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn't much help-taste is a quality so intangible that it can't even be defined. But we know it when we meet 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.

Protect your dreams from your nightmare

Her laughter was a shiny thing, like pewter flung high in the air.

How serious can a movie about time-traveling robots be? You want it to be cool and fun.

Although you have so far demonstrated little faith in my ability to pay, I yet hope to demonstrate that I am somebody who pays his debts-for example, to you.

One sound idea is all that you need to achieve success.

Art is alive because it is mortal.

What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?

I always overpay or overtip when I'm upset.

Priests and conjurors are of the same trade.

There is a balance in between where you can still make art, but it does not have to be insular.