Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.

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.

Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.

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.

You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do

A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.