Writing is a craft not an art.

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.

Noise is the typographical error and the poorly designed page...Ambiguity is noise. Redundancy is noise. Misuse of words is noise. Vagueness is noise. Jargon is noise.

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

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.

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.

Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.