Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

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

Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.

Eloquence invites us to bring some part of ourselves to the transaction.

Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.

Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

Good writers are visible just behind their words.