Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.

Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.

If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.

People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.

Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.

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