Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.
Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.
Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.
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.