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

Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.

Be grateful for every word you can cut.

What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.

People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like.

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

Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.