Memoir isn't the summary of a life; it's a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It's not; it's a deliberate construction.

The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do.

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.

Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.

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

To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.

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