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

Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.

Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.

People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.