Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty. The sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and graceful boughs and frisky kittens and sleepy lagoons.

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.

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

The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.

Writing is thinking on paper.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.

Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.