I try to make what I have written tighter, stronger and more precise, eliminating every element that's not doing useful work. Then I go over it once more, reading it aloud, and am always amazed at how much clutter can still be cut.

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

One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.

The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.

Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like "enthralling" and "luminous."

Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.