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

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.

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

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife.... I guess I am a fantasy.

That's one of those meaningless and unanswerable questions the mind keeps returning to endlessly, like the tongue exploring a broken tooth.

Everybody tends to think I'm crazy, which is the biggest problem in my life.

Those who fear death most are those who enjoy life least.

Between me and life is a faint glass. No matter how sharply I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.

The world turns softly / Not to spill its lakes and rivers.

Intelligent coaching is sometimes no coaching.

When those nerf footballs get wet though then they actually do get heavy.

The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.

It's wild to be seen differently and have more visibility, but it's rewarding.