Most good essays are conversations with yourself - not just your decided thoughts but your dilemmas.

For most of my life, I have wanted broad impact but now, at 72, I'm not so sure that's always my first priority.

In the best nonfiction, it seems to me, you're always made aware that you are being engaged with a supple mind at work. The story line or plot in nonfiction consists of the twists and turns of a thought process working itself out.

Why am I attracted to all these lying quotes all of a sudden? Here’s another one. This one by Phillip Lopate: ‘(Children know it better than adults) that in telling a lie, fidelity is everything.’

You must read a lot of personal essays - you needn't reinvent the wheel.

Have fun writing, because it enhances both the writer's and reader's experience.

... I vowed that I would always respect the right of an individual to kill himself. Whether suicide was a moral or immoral act I no longer felt sure, but of the dignity of its intransigence I was convinced.