Writers are the custodians of memory, and that's what this chapter is about: how to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into.

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.

You ain't get nothing for staying low, lazy. The world only tremble at the feet of the few craziest doers ever lived.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first.

The film, 'Aftershock,' for me is really about how the minor problems in life that we think are so major ultimately mean nothing when a tragedy happens, when a real problem happens.

I need to eliminate 'like' from my vocabulary. I begin sentences with, 'That's seriously like ' I hear myself talking in this Los Angeles high-school student kind of way, and I hate it.

I didn't expect to win the Oscar. You grow up watching the Oscars on TV and you think it happens to fancy people. It was really surreal

You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns?

No deceit is so veiled as that which lies concealed behind the semblance of courtesy.

The doctors must tell you that one of the risks of surgery is that you might die. This poor doctor was talking to an actress. It was very dramatic to me. To him, it was just a thing he had to say

Before man's fall the rose was born,St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;But for man's fault then was the thornWithout the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.

There is salvation only for the brave.