Writers who think THEY are being criticized when only that writing is being criticized are beyond a teacher's reach. Writing can only be learned when a writer coldly separates himself from what he has written and looks at it with the objectivity of a plumber examining a newly piped bathroom to see if he got all the joints tight.

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

Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn't much help-taste is a quality so intangible that it can't even be defined. But we know it when we meet it.

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

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.

If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.

When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.