All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.

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

To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.

If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.

Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.

I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.

A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.