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

Writing is a craft not an art.

Writers who think THEY are being criticized when only that writing is being criticized are beyond a teacher's reach. Writing can only be learned when a writer coldly separates himself from what he has written and looks at it with the objectivity of a plumber examining a newly piped bathroom to see if he got all the joints tight.

I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.

Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.

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.

Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.