The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.

My commodity as a writer, whatever I'm writing about, is me. And your commodity is you. Don't alter your voice to fit the subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page, a voice that's enjoyable not only in its musical line but in its avoidance of sounds that would cheapen its tone: breeziness and condescension and clichés.

Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.

Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away.

Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.