Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.

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.

One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.

If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.

Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.

Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a different person.

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.