As a writer I try to operate within a framework of Christian principles, and the words that are important to me are religious words: witness, pilgrimage, intention.

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

Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.

No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief

Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.

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

You learn to write by writing.