What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.

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.

She ignored my observation. This generally happens with me. Show me a woman, I sometimes say, and I will show you someone who is going to ignore my observations.

What's tragic isn't that we can't retaliate...What's truly tragic is......being consumed with vengeance and not being able to live your life.

The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in mine.

Boosting mankind's capability for coping with complex, urgent problems

The ONLY thing that seems to band all nations together, is that their governments are universally bad.

Good that you ask. You should always ask, always have doubts.

It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

Steven, I know I phrased that as a question, but it was really a command. Yes, but mine is…ummm…private. Private, Steven? Yes, Miss Palma. PRIVATE Steven? Again with the capital letters?

All big changes of the world come from words.

What could you achieve that would make you proud, that no one else could do with the same ease?