Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.

Not everybody has a talent for painting, or for the piano, or for dance. But we can write our way into the artist's head and into his problems and solutions. Or we can go there with another writer.

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.

Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.

A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.

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

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.