You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.

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.

What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.

There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you.

Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.