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.

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.

Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.

Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.

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.

Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.