A clear sentence is no accident.

Be grateful for every word you can cut.

Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.

If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.

Thought is action in rehearsal.

Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.

Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.