To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.

Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

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

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid.

If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.