Good writing is lean and confident.

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

Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.

Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.

A writer is always working.

Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new.

Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.