Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do

If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen - editors, agents and publishers - whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not so high.

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

Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.