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.

Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.

Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.

Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.

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

Writing is thinking on paper.

The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.